Sunday, April 26, 2015

Flea Market Finds

Saturday's haul.
 Less than twenty bucks, done by 9:00 am, no rain, nine items, 28 photos.
1 Euro for these awesome old tailor's scissors.

I think I got these three for 7 Euros.  Expensive.

The mortice chisel turns out to be Peugeot.  This should be a good one.

8mm Voltus?

1/4" chisel by Two Cherries.

How about some out-of-order action?  I think this handle isn't original to the gouge.

Nice shallow sweep.

A little rusty, but a British chisel. 

Here it is, 50 Euro cents.

This chisel was 1 Euro.  Another nice and narrow one.

I have never heard of this before.  Matador, and the back of the handle is stamped, Ulmia.

Hefty for such a narrow chisel.

This pair was two Euros.

More non-orignial handles.  But, I really like the octagonal one.

Nice and thin.  One of them might be bent, I am not sure.

Another expensive lot, 7 Euros.

I have no regular drill bits for a brace.  Now I have three!

This is what I really wanted, a countersink.  And, there were four!

A little grubby, we'll see how they clean up.

The obligatory gimlet bit.  This one could be nice.

I soaked them all in a water bath with citric acid to remove the rust.

The gouge says, "Herring Bros., London"


Three out of four of these look really nice!

I completely took the scissors apart, cleaned them up and sharpened ala Paul Sellers.

I couldn't see this with all the crud.  It says, "Flexo, garantee."

They now work perfectly.  A little rough on the handle.  I might paint and coat with epoxy for comfort.

11 comments:

  1. Hi Brian,
    nice findings. I like the countersinks.
    It seems that citric acid is working pretty well against the rust.
    How are your experiences with it? I have used it in the past to remove zinc from hinges to give them a pure and old look.

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    Replies
    1. Hi Stefan,

      I really like citric acid for rust removal, and for zinc removal. The only problem is it often leaves a gray finish on items if there is nothing else on them to protect them. The scissors came out of the bath with a pretty rough texture on the handles. Other than that, I find it a pretty low-impact method.

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    2. I'll give it a try. I have still to remove the rust from the brace I found at the flea market two or three weeks ago.
      At least it should work for the chuck.

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  2. You can try vinegar too. I put a plastic tub with vinegar in it out in the warm sun, and that works good for me. Here's a picture I took soaking a couple things:
    http://i.imgur.com/oAUodS2.jpg
    It lifted all of the rust right off that saw blade.

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  3. About that Ulmia "Matador" chisel. I know that some German manufacturer exported line of tools specifically for the South American market. I have an Axe stamped Casco, which was made in W Germany by Helko.

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    Replies
    1. Interesting. I wonder how it wound up back in a Munich flea market!

      I googled "Matador" and got a company that makes tools completely unrelated to what I was looking at. It might be fun to dig a little deeper.

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  4. BTW I agree whole heartily with your restoration process. To me if I cannot restore a tool into working order, I'm not interested. They have to earn their keep in my tool chest. I only do what is necessary, not trying to make them looking like new.
    Cheers
    Bob

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    Replies
    1. I like nice, shiny tools. If I can get them that way, all the better, but it needs to be functional first and foremost.

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  5. I google ulmia matador chisel and look what I found
    http://www.holzwerken.de/museum/hersteller/arns.phtml
    Cheers
    Bob

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    Replies
    1. Thanks for that, Bob! I hadn't heard of this one before.

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