My New Stakes

Before Christmas I bought a second hand set of stakes that were advertised in the Benchpeg newsletter.

The great thing about getting second hand tools is the price, the only downside is that sometimes they require a little work to get them cleaned up and ready to use. I spent a day over the holidays working on the stakes to bring them back to life.

The spoon stakes I got are nearly perfect and just needed a light clean and polish. The two larger domed and flat stakes and the smaller saddle stake have some rust that needed a bit of extra elbow grease.

In an effort to speed up the process I googled how to remove rust. There were a million and one suggestions but the few logical ones I tried like baking soda and vinegar made very little difference. Here are some photos of my stakes before and after and the restoration process in between.

I began by cleaning the stakes with steel wool and WD40 to remove the rust.

The next step was to use the polishing lathe and roughing out mop. Once the heads of the stakes were clean I gave them a final polish with the softer polishing mop.

To keep my lovely new stakes rust free I gave them a wipe of oil.
and here are my stakes all shiny and clean and ready to use.