Pixietown

since I want to hand sew my own clothes and stuff I need decent tools, including dressmaker shears. but a reputable one is an investment, and I already splurged my spending money on ropes

I have these shears lying around that are from a reputable brand, but they're in terrible state can we make these become a "decent tool" again, and avoid more consumption? I guess if you disassemble them, vinegar the rust away a bit, then file away the rest, then sharpen… I've never tried sharpening scissors, but I have a whetstone somewhere… could even spray that handle to redo the painting while I'm at it?

- this https://www.engineeringforchange.org/news/how-to-make-penetrating-oil/

says that vegetable oil + 10% acetone is as good a penetrating oil as wd40

- Japanese people use tsubaki oil on blades

- I have both tsubaki oil and acetone

I don't have steel wool here tho would 600-grit sandpaper be too abrasive for it, do you think.

it feels weird to remove rust from metal then just leave it exposed without any type of varnish or anything (I mean not the cutting edge, the body of the blades). but since all scissors are like that I'll assume they don't work well if you paint over. maybe it's not smooth enough?

in any case I'll take care to keep them oiled, the jojoba oil I got for my ropes should do as well as tsubaki.

I once forgot a bunch of drill bits in the garden and they rusted horribly. I tried to give them a vinegar bath, but even after several days there was too much rust to scrub. I AHDH forgot about it for a month or so, by then the water was a rust sludge but the bits weren't recoverable. I gave up in frustration, threw away the whole thing and got new bits.

now this year I was reading on natural and plant-based dyeing (I'm especially interested in charcoal dyes, which aren't very commented on for some reason) and so I was learning about mordants and fixatives. turns out the rust sludge would be an ideal ferrous sulfate mordant for dark dyes like charcoal dust.

I mean just getting some ferrous sulfate is cheap, but finding out about this gave me a bit of a, "trash is actually treasure" moment

I extremely love the dialect of this man, could listen to this for days
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AIBCVMTYg4

tool man: "A knife blade is sharpened on both [sa̟e̯d͜s], you gotta get a nice clean edge for t' cuʔ to work well… scissors work entirely [dɪfɹ̈n̩]… the two sides that come together, 's completely [flɛ͜ət̚]…"

me: this man is 100% trustworthy and I'll believe everything he says