And speaking of old 'rusty' stuff, here's some photos of some stuff which was at one time a bit rusty but which has since been restored to their original condition.

When I retired in 2016, after working 49+ years in engineering, I decided to restore a few old items that I had been wanting to, but had been putting off, however, now that I had the time, I went ahead with the projects.

The first project, was the my most complex, restoring a 1927 Singer 66 Sewing Machine. This sewing machine was once owned by my wife's grandmother and in fact, my wife, when she was a young girl, learned to sew on this same sewing machine. Anyway, it had been stored in less than ideal conditions in a garage up in Washington state for the last 30 years or so, before we rescued it in 2013. Anyway, it was a project which took me almost three months to complete. I had to take the metal parts down to their bare metal and repainted them. The old finish was removed from the wood parts and refinished as well.

And before you ask, I have no plans to sell this sewing machine, first because of it's sentimental value to my wife, but also because, despite its fully restored condition, these old Singer machines are not worth that much because there were millions of them manufactured and thousands have been restored (it was very easy for me to find a couple of reproduction parts that were missing, as well as the leather belt used by the treadle mechanism to drive the sewing machine and the decals used to put the final touches on it).

The last of my three post-retirement restoration projects was the most minor, an 80+ year old Winchester #3060, 1/4 inch wide Rabbet Plane. It was my fathers but I have no idea of exactly from where or when he acquired it. It's possible that he could have gotten it from his father as he did work for a short time in a furniture factory but that's pure speculation. Anyway, this Rabbet Plane was manufactured by the Winchester Tool Company, which was a division of the Winchester Arms Company, formed after WWI as part of a diversification effort. They produced a wide range of very high quality hand-tools including a large variety of woodworking hand-planes.

Now I've estimated the age of the tool by the fact that the Winchester Tool Company was formed in 1920 and was closed when the Great Depression hit, so that makes it at least 80 and perhaps as much as 90 years old. Now I mention that these were considered very high quality tools and you can see from the pictures that there is very fine detail and the fittings (thumb screws, knobs) are very well finished. And this is also borne-out in what Winchester hand-tools go for on today's antique market. I've seen some of larger hand planes, some of which are real works of art, selling for several hundred dollars on eBay. And while I haven't found any of this specific model Rabbet Plane on auction sites, I did find a #3061 (1/2 inch) and a #3062 (3/4 inch) Rabbet Planes selling for $250 and $300 respectively. They also made a model #3063 (1 inch) Rabbet Plane but I haven't seen yet what they're going for to collectors. It seems that there's a really big market for antique woodworking tools out there.

Note that after I finished this restoration, I again gave it to our middle son.