Opinions on old Council Tool axe

A

axehead

Joined
Jan 14, 2011
Messages
4
I came across this Council Tool axe a while back and thought about refurbishing it. As you can see, it hasn't been taken care of at all. I ran a flap disc across one side and you can still see some pitting, the other side is completely covered in pitting.

axehead.jpg
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I've got a 4" grinder, homemade buffing machine with an expander wheel, and a flexible shaft set up. Most of my polishing and buffing experience has been on aluminum and some stainless. With the tools mentioned can it be done fairly easily without spending a lot of coin on different abrasives?
Any help is appreciated. Thanks

Steve
 
You mean for removing the rust? $5 or less will get you a pretty good sized jug of vinegar... toss it in that for an hour or two and it should get rid of all the rust and leave a nice patina.
 
I agree with killa....Soak it in vinegar or overnight with musturd that should clean it up very nice. Looks like a nice head....
 
I gave it a soak in vinegar for a few hours and this is how the reverse side looked.

axe1b.jpg
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Then I hit it with a flap disc on my 4 1/2" grinder and now it looks like this.

axe2.jpg
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Should I go over it with a metal grinding disc to remove the pitting or will that be too aggressive? The flap disc might work if it weren't worn out already. Any suggestions? Thanks.

Steve
 
Dusty One said:
I agree with killa....Soak it in vinegar or overnight with musturd that should clean it up very nice. Looks like a nice head....
Click to expand...

Yeah, it's really just preference. From my experience, mustard tends to leave a weird smell that's hard to get off and a yellowish discoloration rather than an even gray. The coating also dries out after an hour or so, which means you need to do several coatings to get serious rust off.

I find that a submersion in vinegar allows for an even patina and doesn't leave streaks and blotches like mustard does (though this can be nice too if you want to add for a pattern). It's also a start-and-forget method as you don't have to deal with replacing dried up, ineffective coatings. Also, you can always just pour the vinegar back into it's container and save it for the next head you need to patina.

Only issue I have with vinegar is occasionally not finding a container big enough for the thing I'm wanting to de-rust / patina :(
 
axehead said:
I gave it a soak in vinegar for a few hours and this is how the reverse side looked. . .
Click to expand...

Really your call - You could just give it one more soak in vinegar for a couple of hours to make sure all of the rust is out of the pits then just leave it like that and start sharpening the edge...

Personally though, those pits look pretty deep and any moisture that stays on the axe head during use is going to have optimal areas to collect in and cause rust/additional pitting if not cared for right away. The head would probably benefit from being leveled off a bit just to avoid this issue - I'd opt for a grinder attachment on a dremel though, just because that's not as aggressive and easier to control. You can then go over the thing with 100 grit sandpaper (by hand) to remove the grind marks.

It's what I used to remove the paint and slight pitting when fixing up my grandfather's hatchet and it worked great: http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=802951
 
I've got a Foredom http://www.foredom.net/ flex shaft and a few different cartridge rolls and plenty of wet/dry sandpaper so that should get me started. This will be my first attempt at polishing steel. From the looks of the link you posted, I'm talking to the right person. :) That was a nice looking axe. Thanks again.

Steve
 
ive found that adding a liberal amount of salt to the vinigar, and adding some heat (not boiling) really increases the effectivness

mike
 
If it is you first project, or just a chopping tool there is no worry. But it isn't one you want to show to every one, I doubt you'll be happy in the end. It just won't be like the double bit GBA's in another thread (and a couple I have in the works)
 
I have used a palm held random orbital sander to get the rough stuff off . Keep changing to a finer grit paper as you go. You can then polish or apply cold gun blue or mustard to splotch the patina. Makes for some interesting patterns
 
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