Cleaning Garden Tools, Part 3

The rules say to sharpen the cutting edges of shovels and such with a file.  But I have a grinding wheel which is just as good and faster, LOL!  We're not talking about fine cutlery here.

So, being careful to generally match the grinding angle to the original  beveled angles, I set about the crude sharpening.  You are only making an edge on one side (chisel, not knife).  LOOK at those sparks, LOL!  I had the handle of the spade resting on the floor, so the grinding angle stayed very consistent.  A light pass back and forth did a wonderful job.

I gave the scuffle-hoes special attention.  They work with back-and-forth cutting strokes just below ground level (sort of like using a mop).  The front edge cuts under weeds on the push stroke, the back edge cuts on the pull stroke.

Then it was time to oil all the metal.  I've read about that bucket of sand with a quart of motor oil poured in, but I'm not going to mess with that.  It feels like pouring oil into the flowerbeds.  The oil on the tools has to get worn off somewhere, right?

So I took another piece of an old undershirt and simply wiped the tools with it dipped in motor oil.  Then I wiped the surfaces of excess oil with a another cloth.

The post-hole digger at the top of the picture WILL get file work.  The curves are tricky for the grinder.

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...