Can I pressure wash my tools?

[JimReed@Tallahassee]

Loyal readers will remember the big ole nasty Athol vise that I acquired from Sarasota early this summer. It was 65 pounds of iron and grease. I decided to pressure wash it in the yard. It came packed in old tee shirts and newspaper and the FedEx lady could not lift the box. I had her wheel her cart into the garage and I nudged it over to the worktable. After opening, I carefully grabbed it closely to my chest like the feral hog it was and stood up to put it on my workbench.



I was able to quickly break it down into manageable pieces and then take those pieces into the cleaning room.




After the washing, I was able to work over the pieces with a wire wheel. Then I needed a base to mount it on. I used a piece of 6/4 walnut.



I buffed up the leadscrew handle and cleaned the innards. Meanwhile, in the paint booth, the vise parts are getting their new spray. The leadscrew on this vise has a spring that maintains contact tension and prevents backlash. Replacing the cotter pin was challenging and required an innovative use of clamps and split plastic pipe to relieve the spring tension.




And finally the vise was done. I call it "Barney".





Whew! What a summer project. So this the end of my "What I did this summer" story. Time for some fall woodworking.

[Steve Friedman]

Jim,  that is truly inspiring.  I love the cleaning room.

Great paint job.  Do you know if that's the original color or was it just Barney inspired?

[JimReed@Tallahassee]

Jim,  that is truly inspiring.  I love the cleaning room.

Great paint job.  Do you know if that's the original color or was it just Barney inspired?

Thanks for your kind words. I scrubbed and picked over these vise parts for quite awhile and got to know this vise pretty well. Unfortunately, records and type studies are not as precise as with our handplanes. From what I could find, it was probably made from 1920-1940. As for color, it had a blue overspray around the jaws that seemed incidental. Most of it was covered with a cream or light yellow but the base coat was asphaltum, or japan finish just like Stanley planes of the era. I wanted something that was brighter and the purple seemed happy.

[Stwood_]

Hi Barney. You look pretty spiffy

[Bibliophile 13]

Well, if guess if the tools end up looking like that, we'll allow you to pressure-wash them once in a while. 


It looks great.  I'll bet it works even better.