Restoring Old Tools to New Glory

In the pursuit of achieving greater self-reliance, I am always gladdened that my lifelong love of woodworking can be combined. Before my writing hiatus, I wrote an article about woodworking without electricity that was greeted with positive comments and some requests for further articles of a similar theme. Since the publishing of the previous article, I have acquired several “new” old tools. Most need restoration to some degree but I believe that there is lot of life left in them.

Now, many may wonder at the need or even desire to use these old tools when power tools are so much easier, efficient, and faster, right? Perhaps, sometimes, powered tools ARE preferable; however, if there IS NO power or if, like me, you truly enjoy learning and using craftsmanship, this may be a road for you.

In the past six months, I have acquired several old chisels, brace bits, hand planes, a camp hatchet, a hewing hatchet, a hewing axe, as well as a scythe. Additionally, my significant other has gotten some old water bath canners, strainers, utensils, and an antique nutmeg grinder that I am trying to restore for her. They all need work but I am confident that they can also be returned to good service.

French Made Mouli Grinder I found in an antique tool place. I picked it up for a couple of bucks and have been restoring it with my Dremel and steel wool.

One might notice a general theme with some of those tools. They are often tools used when shaping and framing heavy timbers. One of my favorite series of books has long been Foxfire and I grew up with centuries old, storied western North Carolinian chestnut and hickory roots, with sawdust in our blood; I have been interested in the art and techniques of shaping or milling timber. In other words, what are the processes for taking a vertically rooted tree, felling it properly, transporting it, processing or shaping it into usable forms? Before there were sawmills, manual sawing, splitting, and hewing were the primary means of converting trees into usable products not meant for the fireplace.

All of those methods were, and still are labor and time intensive. With the advent of water driven saws, then steam turned, and finally modern powered saw mills, it was soon easier to get planked and uniformly sized lumber. The growing availability of this lumber led, eventually, to modern stick framing construction methods.

While I will not turn this into a treatise comparing old construction methods with current methods, I will say that there is a growing body of evidence that demonstrates that what building methods that were used for centuries throughout the western cultures and even in Japan is more efficient in terms of energy used for environmental comfort and even in the actual construction and maintenance of structures. Simply put, the older methods are proving to be greener, in many cases, than current construction methods. This is bearing out as a new trend is growing in the building industries that are combining old methods with new technology and materials to achieve higher levels of building and energy efficiency. What is old is new again.

Great points but how does this apply to us?

Consider this, the power becomes intermittent or non-existent (pick your reason du jour –EMP, CME, asteroid strike, economic chaos, etc). You and yours have survived to this point. The building materials at the big box stores are not easy to come by. You HAVE to build some structures for a variety of reasons. How do you take those trees that most are burning up for wasted heat and turn them into useful forms? Even if you have a couple of books lying around, do you have access to the TOOLS to do this? If you had these skills and the means, prior to needing them, how marketable would they prove to be? Imagine how much food, clothes, ammunition, medicine, or other skills and services you could get if you could build a structure or you could fashion needed things out of suitable timbers? This is the essence of bartering.

Or to make it more relevant, how about having the skills and means to craft things simply because you learn to LOVE the feel of a quality tool in your hands as you use it on God’s own bequest to us to do what humans do- create objects of functional beauty. You may discover a latent need to connect with our vestigial love of creating with wood in ways you cannot now fathom, nor appreciate.

Surely, I romanticize this to a degree but that is how I do feel about the process. For the more spiritual amongst us, there is, at least from my worldview, a degree of stewardship in this, as well. For those of a like mind, we are called to be stewards of the world and this is a remarkable manner of exercising stewardship…..but I digress.

Before ANY of the previously described things can be achieved, tools must be acquired. Where do we get these tools? What do we get? How do we restore them? How do we maintain them? How do we use them?

As I intend this to be a series of articles, I fully expect to answer these questions in some detail. But to answer the first question let us thinks outside of the box and we will discover follow on questions, as life always proves.

Where do we get these tools?

I haunt flea markets, garage, and yard sales. I brake for tools. I am a bit of a tool geek, like that (insert Tim Allen grunts now). While it is fun to get a great deal on a used power tool, when you live in an area like mine, it is possible to find some interesting old manual tools. Understand your area, and you will understand what to look for. I live in an old blue collar east coast industrial town with a colonial history of tradesmen living and working in trades like the maritime, steel, and war industries. As a result, many people will have tools handed down from their grandfathers that were used in pipe fitting, carpentry, mechanics, etc. While the carpentry tools are great for my interests, I have to go to the eastern shore or western Maryland or to parts of Pennsylvania or back south to find tools more long the line of timber processing tools. The area and its history and historical economy have a lot to do with availability of tools. However, this is NOT a hard and fast rule, I have found.

We have large flea markets and salvage sales in my area. Invariably, there are “antique” or junk dealers located there. These tend to be the guys in the dusty corners of poorly lit buildings with a labyrinth of warren like paths of tables and ramshackle areas of used wares. It is a cornucopia of treasures really. Most of these guys are older men with a sense of history that often are fascinating to talk to. One of my favorite gentlemen is a World War II vet and his friend the Korean War vet and we have literally talked for the better part of an hour as we discuss tools, compare war stories, and haggle over prices. Believe me, it is always time well spent.

The next place to look is in your relatives’ garages, barns, etc. I have heard of excellent finds this way. Most people have little appreciation for these tools and view them as rusty clutter. Maybe you can get them and do something with them and it becomes a win-win for all parties.

You can look online. Craigslist is a favorite resource for me. I have gotten many things from there. Sometimes they are good deals, other times they are not. It is buyer beware. But for all the bad things I have gotten from Craigslist, I have bartered rabbitry equipment, outfitted half of my wood shop, reclaimed lumber, gotten chainsaws, and there are rumors that I may or may not have gotten some thunder sticks, as well. Tools can be found there easy enough. Amazon can be a good resource, I am told. However, for the truly hard to come by, I have availed myself of Ebay.

Ebay is not something you just jump into. I would suggest two basic things before you wade into these waters for tools. First, research the tools. Read about them online, talk to old woodworkers (go to your local Woodcraft or Rockler store for some old wood butchers to talk to), look up images of them, read old books, watch some Roy Underhill or other Youtube videos. Get an idea of how tools are made. Cutting tools tend to have two types of steel if they were purposely made to be tools. The tools have a different temper for the areas that lead to the cutting edges to make the cutting edges more hardy and keen while the body tends to be softer for economy and resiliency’s sake. IF the cutting edge is ground two deeply, then you might want to pass on cutting tools. Second, have a price point that you want to spend with a cap. Auctions are competitive and it is easy to get caught up in the moment and overbid on something.