That looks like the same model of Dremel I have, Shrinkrap. Either brass or steel wire brushes work. You just have to be safe and careful. The wire brushes lose wires as they wear, so you have rust dust and wire fragments being generated; that’s why I do it outside, with safety glasses and a dust mask.
The sanding attachments are likely too fast-cutting and round to be as useful on pruners. The same is true for the grinding wheels.
Dremels are great tools. I recently took a sturdy spoon and put a sharper edge on it to be used for scraping the seeds and stringy stuff out of winter squash, or hollow out peppers for stuffing. That spoon has freezer tape on the handle as a warning!
Since you already have a Dremel, no need to shift the ring request!
Yes, quite the handy thing for dog nails! We subject my daughter’s dogs to Dremel treatments regularly. Don’t think it’s been used for anything else though, around here anyway.
I’ve been using them since model car club in junior high. Then jewelry making in college. And so on and so forth…
But not garden shears.
I still learn new things every day
@bbqboy - I keep learning new stuff too, just when I thought I knew it all! (Not really) Big proponent of life long learning and being open to learn. A favorite saying: “When the student is ready, a teacher appears.” Have found this to be true…
I respectfully suggest a different sort of chemical warfare. PB Blaster for things that are stuck. Rust-Oleum Rust Dissolver for things that are rusted. Wash the chemicals off with warm water. Touch up with 1000 grit wet/dry sandpaper and wash again. Use WD-40 (a water dispersent) to get water out of crevices. Then use a very light coating of light machine oil to protect.
For restoration Rust-Oleum makes good primers and paints. For the handles you can get Plasti Dip in any hardware store. I use bright yellow for service points on engines and other machinery and pink for tools; who’s going to steal tools with pink handles?
I don’t recommend steel wool or soap-infused variants like Brillo pads. The wool sheds little bits that rust. It’s a vicious cycle. Bronze wool also sheds but doesn’t rust. Hardware store or marine chandlery.
For sharpening I use the same tri-stone I use for knives only on the beveled side, not the flat side.
My 1983 Felco 2 has a lot of miles on it, one squeeze at a time and looks pretty new. Personal rule - never put it down. In hand or in its holster on my belt.
I was taking a boat from Chesapeake Bay to Puerto Rico and ended up in Bermuda. Unfortunately we had a rigging failure and a crew injury and diverted to Bermuda where I spent a few days organizing repairs. Fortunately I was able to avoid losing the mast. Unfortunately I was the injured crew; I broke some ribs. No displacement fortunately. Have you ever tried to clean the bottom of a top-loading refrigerator with broken ribs? I’ll give you a hint. The bottom doesn’t get clean. I’ll be right about at six weeks when I get back to the boat so crew are going to have to do some of the scut work I usually make a point of doing.
Anyway chemical warfare is a good thing. I do like the Dremel ideas. Try to find a wire wheel with brass or bronze wires to avoid the rust problem. You can also get some very cool “blades” for oscillating tools like Fein and with smaller grit size than wire wheels.
I gave you brand names that work well for me. You can look them up and find equivalents if those aren’t available. Incidentally an even better rust remover and corrosion breaker is a 50-50 mix of automatic transmission fluid (ATF) and acetone. You really should wear a respirator but it works wonders. A bit DIY. Roughly equivalent to making cake from scratch versus from a box per the ongoing thread here on HO.
We used to have jugs of acetone and benzine when I repaired binoculars and telescopes.
We’d amuse ourselves pouring them on the styrofoam packing.
I loved the 70s!
I don’t know whether the grand piano rims at Steinway are still done that way too - they were in the past. A tricky shape to wrangle a piece of wood into.
A few years back I found a site that sold replacement parts for Felco shears, and bought a new blade for my No 6. If I find it again I’ll post it, I seem to recall that it was from Felco proper, but not a main part of their site, but i’ll go look.
