The Joy of (Restoring) Tools

I imported the five screwdrivers below with the tool chests I talked about here, in April 2008. They have been in quite a few different garages and basements since then. I've always intended to restore them. This post is the story of how that intention became a reality.

First, let's take a quick look at the damage. Each screwdriver consists of three parts: The steel shaft, the wood handle and a steel ferrule: 

 Most of the steel shafts were bent....

Or have chipped ends....

And the handles have been lightly mushroomed...

The first step was getting the shaft straight (ooh, err), which I accomplished by applying appropriate blows with the nearest BFH. This was followed by a good going over with the wire wheel:

This revealed the "GTL" logo on the smallest and largest screwdrivers, which indicate they came from my Uncle Herbert's tool chest:

Next, I used a combination of the grinding wheel and a flat file to hone the business end of the screwdriver shaft into a symmetrical and square blade:

The flat blade and the shaft took a lot of sanding. I started with 100 grit emery cloth which was enough to work out most of the divots - the next photo is taken part way through this process. 

This is later after a lot of sanding, working through the grits...150, 240 and 400. This was the most laborious part of the process.

Same again with the ferrule...the smaller ones were more difficult /fiddly to work on. 

The wood handles were re-rounded with a flat file and the entire handle was sanded with 150 grit all over....and then I worked through the grits as above to 400. 

The grooves in the handles were cleaned out with abrasive thread which I sourced online for this specific purpose.

There were a few dings in the handles that were too serious to sand out: 

I made some filler out of sanding dust and wood glue and applied it to the most serious defects in the handles:

More sanding of the metal parts to 600 grit with "wet 'n 'dry," polishing of the metal parts, finishing of the handles with Odies hard wax and then reassembly gives the result below. As I mentioned, the largest and smallest screwdrivers date from my Uncle's tool chest. Two of the others have the word "Halford" on the shaft which is the hallmark of mass production and the fifth is just "British made."

I also have possession of Uncle Herbert's tenon saw, which did not come out of the tool chest. This is my primary hand saw and always has been. I don't use it much, what with having so many power tools, but when I need a hand saw I use this one. It cuts great and doesn't need sharpening. But it does look a bit beaten up:

On close inspection I discovered the wood handle was cracked. This has never affected the functionality.

Getting the handle off was straightforward and revealed some rust at the previously hidden section of the saw blade. 

I sanded the blade and the brass casing with 400 grit while trying to keep away from the teeth:

The manufacture's information is much clearer now: "Fredrick Willey, Leeds; Cast Steel - Warranted."

The saw handle was sanded and then refinished in the same way as the screwdriver handles. 

Reassembled: