If you would like to see another of my restorations, may I suggest these -

120 year old Disston handsaw -    • Repairing a 120 Year Old Rusty Broken...  
WWII British Military Machete -    • Repair and Restoration WWII British M...  

In this week's repair and restoration video, we obnoxiously over-restore a vintage set of grass and garden shears. Spring is here and I will use this priceless, restored heirloom to clean up the yard.

I began the project by spending too much time trying to remove the bolt holding the two shear blades. It ended up needing heat to break up the rust but once off, the shears opened and closed easy but did not cut grass well.

After paint remover and rust dissolver, I wire brushed the handle to remove all traces of the old finish and gave the entire piece a zinc plating to protect it from future corrosion. I needed to nickel plate the blades in order to prepare them for copper plating, which was a first for me. It took several attempts to get copper to bind to the metal but it finally worked. I copper plated all pieces which were to be exposed. I fabricated a clip to hold the handles together when not in use and I found an old spring which fit perfectly. I sharpened the shearing edges and sanded oxidation from the hardened blades.

I filed the handles to remove any extra material and filled the remaining pits with automotive body filler before using a filling primer and wet sanding to achieve an overly smooth handle surface. This was completely unnecessary for this piece and totally ridiculous but fun to do. I painted the handles a meadow green color. After dropping one the handles I had to patch up the green paint and then reassembled everything.

Timecodes:

00:00 Intro and disassembly
01:49 Paint stripping
02:15 Rust removal
03:30 Filing sharp edges
04:07 Sanding blades
04:13 Sharpening shearing edges
04:29 Zinc plating
05:13 Nickel plating blades
05:37 Locating a spring
06:13 Copper plating
06:50 Filling pits with Bondo
07:49 Priming and Painting
08:24 Fabricating a handle lock
10:58 Fixing paint chips
11:36 Assembly
11:59 Testing
12:11 Final reveal

If you would like to try any of the tools (or similar) you see in this video, check out the following links. As an Amazon associate, the channel earns a small amount from qualifying purchases.

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