Watch this loving restoration of a rusty old hammer to its former glory

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Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/12/03/watch-this-loving-restoration.html

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Is there any reason to get rid of the rust other than aesthetic (and I guess cleanliness) reasons?

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The footage of the handle has me craving some falafel.

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I’ve been seeing these “restoration” videos with tools popping up all over my youtube feed. Most of them are like this, a heavy handed guy with an angle grinder shining up a rusty tool and taking away a ton of metal and damaging the striking face. But hey, it’s shiny!

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The end result was really nice, and all…

…but I probably wouldn’t used a sanding wheel. Those can strip away quite a bit of material, and exposing the raw untreated metal is just going to leave it vulnerable to rust again. I would have hit it with a wire wheel, knocked off the rust, and coated it with a layer of grease or oil and left it at that. The end result wouldn’t have been AS pretty and youtube ready, though.

I’m just a weekend warrior and don’t run a youtube channel or anything, so what do I know?

The treatment of the leather handle was pretty, though.

I will leave this here, even though it has nothing to do with the topic at hand:

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There are some good videos of people restoring vintage Hot Wheels cars, too. I love before/after projects.

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The handle on that thing looks dangerously thin. I’m not sure I’d trust it with anything more than those small nails he demoed it with.

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Yes! This stuff is my medicine, I swear. Restoration videos are basically my favorite thing to watch on youtube.

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Well I enjoyed it, but have to agree that the hammer face may or may not have gotten the shape it needs to be safe and effective.

There’s something immensely satisfying about restoring seeming junk.

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I hit my thumb once with a hammer.

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I wonder if he knows you can buy hammers at the hardware store.

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So many thoughts!

  1. The striking face looks to be a mess now, based on that video of pounding in a roofing nail. But he was also choked up on it and tapping, it seemed, and that’s not how to drive a nail, so maybe that’s why it kept sliding off the head.
  2. The final finish is, well, not a finish. Lots of tool marks, and nothing to inhibit new rust formation. Within a year, it will look like it did at the start.
  3. Showing off the “restored” hammer driving nails seems weird. I’m pretty sure it did so just fine before “restoration”.
  4. Wow there is some unsafe use of other tools in this video. I mean, nothing that’s gonna get you killed or maybe even hospitalized, but sanding fingertips off really, really sucks.
  5. But (and I can’t believe I’m first with this) it is indeed
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Yeah, I hope he’s wearing a mask too, though I doubt it. There are definitely better and worse restoration videos. This guy is tops:

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Probably less so than getting a gloved finger caught in that grinder, though.

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This is still the most impressive tool restoration video I’ve seen on Youtube to date:

I still think he’s nuts for restoring the chain instead of replacing it.

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For all the snarkiness here, you’d think no one even saw the slo-mo at the end where the newly-refurbished tool pulled a nail out of the wood.

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The effort required to free up the seized piston (at the 6 minute mark) makes the final outcome all the more impressive.

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Man, that brings back memories of my Vespa restoration days. When that piston popped out, I let out a “yess!”

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Manual impact drivers are the mark of those who care about old mechanical things.

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