Old world craftsmanship

[WFO Speedracer]

I was cleaning out the cabinet shop which is in an old barn at my parents estate , There is a section of floor that was built to build cabinets on and was covered with particle board, of course over the years it had given way and my brother had stacked plywood on top of it.

I decided to redo the flooring with 3/4" plywood and put my motorcycle collection in there plus I also have to build kitchen cabinets for my other house and need a flat level surface to build them on, this will serve both purposes.

While doing that job I found a few things that I thought were interesting, the first being this old metal toolbox that belonged to my Granddad , I never met either grandad , they both died before I was born or shortly after , so I am lucky to have found this keepsake.

He kept his machinist tools in it and I have a few of those antique tools as well that I will probably put back in the box.

Surprisingly all the hinges still work as do the latches, the handle is still there but it will need a bit of love.

I could restore it of course but you can't recreate patina like this so most likely I will clean it up some, degrease it and spray it with matte clearcoat to protect it for future generations, for right now It is just sprayed it down with WD40.

It looks like the same box in the vid below.

preserving an old rusty toolbox - Search Videos

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[WFO Speedracer]

I decided I had to restore this thing, if nothing else as a family keepsake , here is the progress so far , I ground all the rust on the outside , hit it with Loctite rust converter and primed it , then I started on the inside , I scrubbed it down with Dawn and steel wool to get some kind of relatively clean surface to start with.

Then I went at it with the grinder and flap disc , then a wire wheel on a close quarter drill and finally hand sanding with 80 grit paper and a small wire brush , then I cleaned it with acetone and hit the inside with the rust converter , it has cleaned up amazingly well thus far.

I am waiting till I finish up a few more items like the TW200 gas tank and the CB200T seat base before mixing up more primer, I will shoot them all at once.