Thread: Hi from new member....

Hi All.....Just a 'quick' intro.

My name is Chrissy and although I'm not a woodworker, I have a great love of beautiful old tools of all kinds. My late father was a scrap metal and secondhand dealer and I spent a lot of my time in childhood going through each day's collection, cleaning up the old brass and silver stuff and mulling over what some of the weird old tools were for. Anyway, I now dabble a bit in art and do restorations and some artwork on old tools, kitchenalia and other metal items such as oil cans, watering cans, buckets...anything that has an interesting or pleasing shape. I also paint saws, BUT am careful not to interfere with the more collectible and vintage saws, preferring to restore them without embellishment. Some I collect are very rusted and I spend quite a lot of time and effort in working on them. I only cover and paint the ones which are not collectible or valuable. Also, I use water-based paint which would be relatively easy to remove should someone wish to do so. I'm not into ruining vintage items, just enhancing them so they can continue to live on as items of beauty long after their useful lives are over.....a little like us really! My interest in this forum is to perhaps get some guidance from experts as to what I can safely 'play' with, and what should be left 'as is'. I have several beautiful old Disstons and these I haven't really touched much except to remove rust and polish and oil the blade, screws and Disston badge and also oil the wooden handles. Yesterday I picked up from what I could tell from Google was a 'steel backed John Cockerill tenon saw'. I have no idea what a tenon saw is for, but it has such a great feel......well balanced in the hand, quite heavy, but with a nice comfortable grip. I love it. When restoring the handles, I stop short of sanding them because I like the old marks of the men/women who used them for years, but I do clean off old paint spots and dirt. I'll be looking forward to finding out as much as I can about my old saw collection, especially those Disstons. Cheers, Chrissy