My grandfather passed away recently, and he wanted to have his tool chest. He was a machinist until the early 1990’s, and this was the tool chest he wheeled around his work place. Since his retirement these tools have sat in a fairly damp location–and have not rusted. Presumably they are covered with some type of oil–I’m not sure what type, but the tools have a strong and unpleasant odor. I’d like to strip whatever was used to protect them from corrosion and replace it with something to continue to protect these tools from corrosion. What should I use to remove the protectant he used and how should I keep them rust-free?
All sorts of stuff will remove the old oil like kerosene (diesel fuel or heating oil), gasoline, or acetone. They need to soak for a while so kerosene is inexpensive and safe. Rub them clean with rags afterward. You can even rinse them in water. Dry them and coat with Penetrol. I know it says it’s a paint additive, but it’s excellent for preventing rust. WD-40 and other products work as well but will leave an odor.
It always amazes me what people on these Boards know about and can explain so easily.
I live near the ocean and rust is a constant issue for the tools and machinery in my shop. I’ve tried a number of things, but I’ve found that Boeshield T-9 has worked the best for me. It leaves a waxy rather than oily coating, and doesn’t attract dust like oil-based coatings do.
To clean the tools, I would probably spray them down with carburetor cleaner and scrub them with a brass bristle brush. (Make sure you wear goggles and gloves when doing this.) Afterwards, wipe them down with Rem Oil Wipes.
Another possibility for a smell is old plastic handled screwdrivers and such. The plastic out gases. I’ve opened a tool box with old screwdrivers and it’s not pleasant.
I think it was Snap On are notorious for this? The yellow handled screwdrivers.
I agree kerosene would be the most inexpensive, safe and effective solvent for cleaning rust preventive off a quantity of tools.
Or see if you can’t take them somewhere or to somebody that has a parts washer. Large metsl bin with a tank of recirculating safety solvent. These use mineral spirits, similar to kerosene, but with less odor, as kerosene is pretty strong by itself. Even so, they will still stink for a time, until the volatiles evaporate.
Chances are the toolbox also smells. If you’re going to keep that, it will probably want a cleaning too. A couple of years ago I bought a used machinist’s tool chest on eBay to use for another purpose, and it smelled old and musty. The drawers were made of wood but the drawer bottoms were metal with felt inside the drawer, so I got rid of those, and scrubbed the drawers and the inside of the chest with a vinegar solution. Then I replaced the drawer bottoms with hardboard, which I had to rabbet down at the edges so they would fit in the slides. It doesn’t smell any more.
In my case they were Craftsmen brand bought in the 60s and 70s.
Almost all of these tools have no plastic parts.
I recall opening a tool box full of Craftsman tools was that smelled like someone must have recently vomited in it. That turned out to be the resin used in the handles. ETA ninja’d by GaryM
The tool box on the top of the tool chest is wood with galvanized steel drawer bottoms, with the bottom and sides of the drawers covered in felt. The felt is very worn and undoubtedly the source of much of the odor. My plan is to remove the felt and keep the galvanized bottoms and use a solid non-slip tool box liner over them.
This is the tool chest. I believe he purchased it from a retiring machinist in 1955.
That is so cool, to have a chest that must be over 80 years old. Gerstner has replacement parts if you want to do any other sprucing up, like of any of the hardware parts.
My dad worked for Snap-On, and I inherited a boatload of 'em, including over a dozen yellow handled screwdrivers. They’ve been sitting in a drawer for nearly 3 decades and don’t smell bad to me. I just checked.
Yes, it needs a new top handle, the mirror is missing and I might put new felt in the top compartment or at least in the lid–looking at their restoration parts I realized that wasn’t exactly the correct chest. I went through their tool box identifier and found it’s their style 42. The description of the chest they give is
The Gerstner Style 42 is one of the most widely recognized design of Gerstner chests ever made. The Style 42 was called the “Apprentice Chest”.
They also have an image for the chest, though the one I have has felt on the entire inside of the top compartment, including the sides:
I had a complete set of Craftsman mechanic’s tools in one of their metal roll cabs plus top box. Which saw great use when I was young, but mostly sat the last decade while I lived in Florida. At one point the cab got banished from the air conditioned house to indoor and ventilated but un-airconditioned storage room.
Fast forward 3 years. I found mold growing on the screwdriver handles and a couple of the wrenches. The mold on the screwdrivers was in the pattern of fingerprints. You could easily see the ridges and whorls. I was amazed.
It was easy enough to clean with bleach to remove the mold and also paint thinner to remove the residual hand oils. But there were a tremendous number of tools of all description that needed that treatment. So a bunch of effort. I also had to replace the ~1/8" sheet foam drawer liners that had started growing mold too.
I later sold the whole shebang before we moved to smaller quarters. It was never quite moldy-smell free, but it was a lot better than when I started.
I suppose the relevance to the OP is that even your very best efforts will be less than 100% effective. Don’t stint in the hard to get corners.
Neat tool chest!
This won’t apply to the OP, but if you have a lot of plastic-handled tools that have the distinctive off-gassing smell, be careful about storing them on drawer liners; the plastic can react with, and stick to, the liner material.
Bonus points to the non-machinists out there who can guess what goes in that skinny vertical drawer in the top center of Gerstner and Kennedy toolboxes.
@leswax, what did your grandfather put in that skinny vertical drawer?
Any cure to the stink from the Craftsman Screwdrivers?
I have that same issue in the one toolbox I’ve always kept the Craftsman screwdrivers in. I was thinking about spreading them out in an outside space for a while to air out. Same with the box.
I wonder if the tools had been coated with wool wax, an oily substance harvested from wool and containing mostly lanolin. I use it myself, “Fluid Film” brand. I think it’s great, and I find the odor neutral or mildly pleasant but I know many people dislike it.
It will be easy to remove as others have said. I’d try mineral spirits or paint thinner or petroleum naptha, all of which are light petroleum distillates that are pretty nonpolar. For a more pure nonpolar solvent you could try toluene.
What would happen if you just put them all in the dishwasher?
^Speaking strictly for me, my gf would be pissed off.