Cleaning Garden Tools, Part 1

Because we were forecast to have several days of drizzly rain, I thought of what I could usefully do in the house.  One thought was to move the stereo cabinet over to the TV and use the speakers to improve the TV sound quality (a cheap home theater).  The second was to do maintenance on my garden tools.  The garden tools seemed more timely.  Mainly, because I've never really done that before.

So I piled all the shovels, hoes, rakes, etc into the wheelbarrow and brought them all into the basement.  I brought everything that had unfinished wood handles, a blade, caked dirt, or rust (and that doesn't leave much - an aluminum soil rake, a plastic and aluminum leaf rake, and a big breaker bar).  Also, I'm leaving all the pruners for real sharpening "later".

There are 3 main things to do.  First clean all the tools of dirt and rust.  I know, we ALL clean the dirt off each time we are putting them away.  Right...  Second protect all the bare wood handles.  Third, sharpen all cutting edges and oil the metal.

So, today I cleaned all the tools.  I laid a few at a time on the workbench.

I was surprised to discover that a wire brush does not remove caked dirt very well.   A narrow metal putty knife works much better and is flexible enough to follow curves.  Below, I'm removing dirt from my poacher's shovel.

After all the dirt was scraped off, I took the wire brush to all the metal surfaces and then washed them with a wet rag.  And of course, dried them with another rag.

Tomorrow, protecting the bare wood...