Inspiring repair cafe makes old garden tools like new | Wow to | Gardening Australia

Costa lives by the 3 Rs – Reduce, Reuse and Recycle – but he believes there should be a fourth R – Repair. He visits a repair café in inner city Sydney to learn how to give his old garden tools a new lease of life.

The repair café is not a free repair centre; it’s a workshop where people can bring broken items and learn how to repair them. Apart from saving resources and money, and keeping useful goods out of landfill, Luke Mitchell, workshop manager at the Bower Repair Centre in Redfern, says using repaired goods is rewarding and satisfying, too.

Costa has a box of his grandfather’s tools to work on, including a saw.

Other visitors have brought in a spade with a broken handle, a pair of secateurs that needs a new spring, as well as cleaning and sharpening, and a pair of shears that was blunt and had a broken handle.

1. To clean and sharpen a saw

What you will need:

Rusty, blunt saw!

Screwdriver

Vinegar

Steel wool

Sponge

Sandpaper

Linseed or other wood oil, plus brush or rag to apply

Bench vice, plus two pieces of scrap wood

Saw file sharpener (called a Cant file)

Clean rag

What you do:

Use screwdriver to remove screws from saw handle. Remove handle.

Pour a little vinegar on the blade and scour it with the steel wool to remove any rust. Wipe it clean with the sponge.

If needed, lightly sand back the timber saw handle; Costa leaves his because it has some lovely carvings on. Now apply the timber oil quite thickly, using the rag or a brush – allow enough to soak in.

Put the scrap wood on either side of the saw blade and clamp it tightly in place so it can be sharpened. Run the file through the gaps in the teeth to sharpen edges.

Wipe off any excess oil from the handle using the clean rag, then replace the handle on the blade.

2. To revitalise rusty secateurs

What you need:

Secateurs

Screwdriver

Steel wool

Vinegar

Machine oil.

Sharpening stone or file.

New spring, if needed

What you do:

Take apart the secateurs using a screwdriver.

Clean off rust with a steel wool and vinegar.

Oil the blades with machine oil.

Sharpen blades on a sharpening stone, a file or knife-sharpening tool.

Put back together.

Install new spring if required.

You can use this same method for hedging shears or larger pruning shears.

3. To repair a rusty spade or shovel

What you need:

Shovel

Damp cloth

Steel wool

Vinegar

Metal file sharpener

Sandpaper

Clean rag

Linseed or other wood oil

What you do:

First clean soil from the shovel with a damp cloth, then remove rust from the shovel-head using steel wool and vinegar. Minimise the amount of steel removed to keep the shovel-head strong.

Use a metal file to sharpen the edges of the tool. Again, remove the least amount of steel to make it sharp and prioritise removing any nicks in the metal.

Smooth the handle with sandpaper. You can also run the sandpaper over the shovel-head to polish the metal.

Use a clean rag to apply lubricating oil to the wooden handle and metal blade. Wipe off excess and allow it to dry.

Preventative maintenance

It’s easy to repair your gardening tools to make them look like new, and here’s some advice on how to keep them that way. At the end of every gardening day, spend the time to:

Rinse off mud and dirt from your tools and wipe them down

Hang tools rather than have them standing on an edge, or clanging with each other

Occasionally wipe with oil.

You can store tools in a sand bucket to keep them clean and sharp

USEFUL LINKS:

https://www.abc.net.au/gardening/factsheets/re-purposed-garden-tools/11507504

https://www.abc.net.au/gardening/factsheets/tool-maintenance/9435848

https://www.abc.net.au/gardening/factsheets/tool-care/9433496

https://www.abc.net.au/gardening/factsheets/tinos-tool-tips/11209258

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