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Old to New Restorations

Old to New Restorations
I picked up this unwanted and unloved vintage brass blowtorch (Monitor no 26) at an auction some time back and decided it needed some love!It seemed complete and intact and mainly in need of some good cleaning and replacing of any seals. The pressure pump wasn't working, no doubt because the leather cup washer had dried out (almost inevitable at this age) but I was confident that this little blowlamp could be brought back to life easily enough.I took the torch apart first of all, then cleaned all the brass parts - firstly with white spirits and then with ketchup! Ketchup is actually a great brass cleaner and really cuts through the worst of the dirt and patina. With the worst of the dirt off, I polished everything using my polishing wheels and finally - good old Brasso.Then I fixed up the dented chimney and replaced all the washers and seals before reassembling the whole thing. And of course, I had to fire it up and give it a test!Chapters:00:00 Intro 00:59 Disassembly 03:13 Cleaning 08:14 Polishing the Brass 09:56 Repairing the Dented Chimney 11:17 Painting the Handle 13:02 Replacing the Seals and Washers 18:20 Reassembly 20:04 Firing It Up and Testing
I'm expanding my vintage hand tool collection - and the latest restoration is this old Marples wooden jack plane. Unlike my past restorations, I'm not going to do a 'perfect' restoration on this plane - I want to keep the patina and let it wear its age with pride! Instead, I'll be cleaning it up and getting the worst of the grime off the body, removing the rust from the metal parts and resharpening to get it back in working order! The plane body, while in overall okay shape, had a couple of large cracks on the top surface, so I filled these with epoxy to stabilise them. Other than the rust removal and regrinding the plane iron, this was the only repair really needed.Chapters: 00:00 Intro 01:38 Taking it apart 03:00 Cleaning 05:20 Rust removal 06:34 Repairing the wedge 07:34 Cleaning the metal parts 09:09 Flatting and regrinding the plane iron 14:14 Fixing the cracks in the body 16:19 Flattening the sole 18:03 Testing
I got this random knife as part of an auction lot last year. Looking at it more closely, I found a makers stamp on it; 'Fame' by S & J Kitchen. It's hard to tell the age exactly - the company traded for around a hundred years - but I'd guess it was made somewhere in the middle of last century.While in reasonable shape, it definitely needed some work; the blade was rusty and the edge chipped, and the handle had a chunk missing from one corner.So I stripped it down, cleaned up, polished and resharpened the blade and made some new knife scales (from some random scrap wood which turned out to be from an old Great Western Railway carriage, and possibly even older than the knife!).**Chapters** 00:00 Intro 00:54 Stripping the handle 01:44 Cleaning the blade 03:10 Reprofiling the blade edge 04:06 Polishing the blade 06:13 Sharpening the knife 06:56 Making new handle (knife scales) 12:51 Outro
This oil (paraffin) lamp was once used as a locomotive cabin lantern - according to the stamp, belonging to North Eastern Railway. That railway existed until 1922, making this lamp around a hundred years old, or possibly even older. It looks like it's had a hard life in the intervening years!The tank had come apart at some point and the resulting leak had gummed everything together. So my first job was to clean it all. Then I removed the old glass, which had been stuck in there with putty at some point. With everything cleaned up, I nickel plated and then soldered the fuel tank back together, before making new beads for the glass to replace the old putty repairs. With all that soldered back together, it got a paint job in as close to the original green as I could find.**Chapters** 00:00 Intro 01:00 Cleaning 04:50 Removing the old glass 07:00 Stripping the paint 08:32 Repairing the fuel tank 14:18 Cleaning up the body 17:36 Replacing the glass 19:19 Painting 21:17 Testing
A lovely old set of antique (Edwardian, as far as I can make out) brass and wood postage scales, sadly neglected. It was time to give them the care they need! After stripping everything down, I stripped off the old finish from the base before sanding, staining and applying shellac to recreate the original coating. I had to learn how to do french polishing as I went, but I'm fairly happy with the end result! With the base finished, I turned my attention to the brass scales themselves. After cleaning the old patina off with tomato ketchup (yes, really!), I polished all the parts with various polishing compounds. Once all back together, it looked great, just as it did when it was new!**Chapters** 00:00 Intro 01:18 Disassembly 05:58 Stripping & Sanding the Base 09:28 Making a New Foot 10:49 Staining & Coating the Base 13:14 Cutting new Baize Pads 14:04 Cleaning & Polishing the Brass Parts 17:54 Making a New Beam 18:55 New Brass Weights 20:02 Reassembly 22:13 Outro#Restoration #Rust #ASMR
I'd been looking for a small vice for some of my projects for a while now, when I came across this at an auction. I think I paid £2 for it!It was severely neglected and seized up from rust. So after soaking it with some oil for a while, I managed to get it apart, then cleaned everything up.Aside from the rust, there wasn't much functionally wrong with it, so I got it repainted and all the bare metal parts were cleaned up, derusted and then nickel plated for corrosion protection.**Chapters** 00:00 Intro 00:32 Disassembly 05:24 Cleaning 05:56 Paint Stripping & Repairing the Jaws 07:56 Cleaning & Polishing the Small Parts 08:18 Cleaning & Plating the Guide Bars 09:40 Cleaning & Plating the Handle 13:53 Reassembling the Handle 15:53 Refitting the Guide Bars 17:21 Painting the Jaws 18:34 Making New Jaw Inserts 19:15 Reassembly 20:54 Outro#Restoration #Rust #ASMR
I got this old engineer's desk lamp as part of an auction lot. It was so rusty and in such poor shape I nearly tossed it - but thought it would make a decent restoration project!It was badly seized, so taking the thing apart took a fair amount of time and effort and left a big pile of rust flakes - but I was victorious!Once apart, I removed all the rust and old paint, filled in the rust pits with body filler and treated everything to a new coat of paint.As I wanted the lamp to be free standing, I had to make a base for it - it was originally designed to be bolted directly to a desk or some machinery. So I turned a new base on my wood lathe, using an old gym weight as ballast.All in all, it came up pretty nice, and will prove useful around the workshop - expect to see it in future videos!**timestamps**00:00 Intro 00:35 Disassembly 07:40 Rust Removal 09:05 Repairing & Repainting the Arms 12:50 Repairing & Repainting the Aluminium Parts 16:08 Cleaning & Replating the Cable Guides 16:50 Making a New Base 19:50 Some Repacement Parts 20:43 Reassembly 24:15 Outro#Restoration #Rust #ASMR
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