For my first post, I decided to tackle a simple restoration. This was my Great Grandfather's Boy Scout knife. The knife itself is beautiful with faux wood inserts of walnutty brown, with nice steel tools. However, the steel was rusty and the inserts were dull. I aimed to fix that...
First is I decided to do the can opener. As you can see, there is a fair amount of rust and grime on it.
After scrubbing furiously with steel wool and carefully rubbing it with sandpaper and a file, it looked like this:
Then I moved on to the awl (leather punch). Again, rust and grime. I forgot to take an "after" picture...
The blade... The most dangerous area to clean because of the hazard of the blade closing and slicing your finger open (I've done that). Also, there is a risk of sliding your finger over the sharp edge (done that too!) For this step I put some leather gloves on.
Next, I opened up all the tools to see the inside full of grime and rust.
To clean this up, I used a dry Q-tip to swab the inside and leave it fairly clean. I then put knife oil on a Q-tip and swabbed the inside again. This removed some rust and more grime. I then used another Q-tip to oil the outside of the knife and all the tools. Finally, I dripped oil inside the knife to clean in between the springs, and I also dripped oil on the hinges of the tools.
Aftermath grime.
Newly restored knife.
Quick side by side comparison and close ups of my two Scout knives. Old on the left, newer on the right.
Another of my great grandfather's knives. This one is my brothers and is in no need of any restoration.
