I was cleaning up a house and a small shop that was burnt to clean up a property and i found some wrenches that were in the building at the time. They were in a tool box with a aluminiun handled hacksaw and it melted the aluminium handle. They look ok. Has any one ever used tools that were in a fire or use any steel that was in a fire or rebuilt a machine that was in a fire?
Sounds like good candidates for custom tools
the heat takes the temper out of the steel and makes it soft . I would keep them around might need it one day just don't trust them with your knuckles or other appendages
If the tools have a lifetime warranty, swap them out for new, if not, sell them on ebay and go buy something new you won't end up breaking any fingers or having scraped knuckles with, years from now if you keep them, you'll forget all about which one's were in the fire and be using them to the extreme and they'll break on you.
I wish i had a hardness tester i would test one up aginst one i already have to see what has happened to them. There was several files there to and they seem to be in good shape now that all the dirt and junk is burt off of them. I saved some to try just to see if they are soft now.
Had a toolbox in the jockey box of my T800 that burned in 2005. Melted all the plastic and rubber off of pliers, screwdrivers, etc. I still use the wrenches today, but they are the second set in my shop box. Not my main set by any means! And they are slowly getting used up for "specials". Andrew
Why would one sell what we believe to be junk to another trusting soul. Profiting from knowingly sending misery to another must be hard on the soul.
Agreed. :thumbdown
old-iron-habit, its pretty simple, nowhere in my post did I say to misrepresent it any way, con someone into buying it, lie to get it sold or sell it with a warrant and claim its new after you give it a paint job overhaul. There is one thing I learned a long time ago, everything has its price and will sell sooner or later, someone will buy it, that's a given, if nothing else it has scrap value, what they do with it after the sale is beyond my control and no longer my concern or anything I can dictate over. If they want it to weld into a lawn ornament its their business and no longer mine, people buy things for many reasons, one being, not to use them the same way, same amount or for the same purpose I do and that doesn't make it wrong in any way. Just because I feel its no longer a good tool doesn't mean someone else will feel there is nothing wrong with it and will buy it in a heartbeat if the price is right. As for being hard on the soul..................if selling used tools and represent them accordingly is a no no, boy I'm............................
It is good to see you cleared that up Randy. I was thinking the same as the others about passing off a tool that has been in a fire and not telling that they were in that condition. But, if the next possessor knows that they were in fact in that condition there is clearly nothing wrong about selling them or giving them to someone else.
Just because a piece of metal has been in a fire doesn't mean it is ruined. Tool steel generally has to get over a thousand degrees for a certain period of time before it will anneal. Cast iron isn't hurt a bit even up to a couple of thousand degrees and cast steel is nearly the same. I've rebuild several hydraulic pumps and motors after machines burned with no problems. Look the tools over carefully for deformations, check out where they were located in relation to the real heat source and make your decision from that. I might be a little leery of using a hammer if I could see the metal has been blued. As long as a wrench still fits a nut or bolt head tight I probably would use it again.
Thank you for clarifying that Randy. I have no issue if they are fairly represented. I never thought of it that way. Fairly represented seems uncommon these days in the sales world.
A friend of mine used to work hauling in scrapped or burned machines, from farm equipment to construction equipment, anything in shed fire is bad news from the git go, as for castings, anything that had the bearings melted out of them was sold to scrap, anything with the bearings still in them was suspect at best, he told me most rebuild shops would reject any casting that was in a shed at the time it burned. Cast isn't hurt in a fire, but it will warp and distort if hot enough that I do know. Most shed fires will get hot enough to distort castings, and melt the bearings right out of them, seize them up tight and so fourth. My opinion and maybe mine alone, is buyer beware if buying anything out a shed that burned. Most stuff that burned outside a shed and still had paint on it, was probably ok, but anything that had tires, grease or diesel nearby when it went up in flames, was probably done for due to intense heat. He also got scavenger rights to tools he found in equipment, so he'd bring buckets of tools to give me, after some time and enough grief I politely told him to not bring any more, as they say been there done that, never again, but quality warranted tools are always welcome, I'd swap them out for new, but most were smart enough to do that themselves long before it was about to be hauled to scrap, most of what was left was the cheap stuff before it went through a fire.