How To Clean Rusty Pruning Shears

Tags

cleaning, garden, gardening, pruning shears, rust

I screwed up….  I left my favorite pruning shears outside in the rain!  It didn’t take long for my cherished & most-used gardening tool to become orange and gritty.  Rust is not pretty!  I’m a frugal girl by nature, so I would hate to buy a new a pair of shears if I could find a way to salvage this sad pair.  So, what’s a girl to do? Look for ideas on Pinterest on how to clean rust off of gardening tools.  (Let’s face it.  I’m not the only one in the world who has landed themselves in this predicament!)

The first thing I discovered was a simple process of using crumpled up tin foil to scrub the metal. (Steel wool would do the trick, too, but I didn’t have any in the house.)

And this DID indeed work to scrape off a lot of the rust.  It also shredded the tin foil.

It was quite difficult to really get into the grooves and crevices, but it worked pretty well.

Since, they were still pretty dingy and dirty looking, I decided to use my standard cleaning formula; the one I use for a lot of my house cleaning and for shining up my antique silver– Baking Soda and Water paste.

With an old toothbrush, I slapped it right on the blades and scrubbed. And scrubbed.  And scrubbed.

It took a bit of elbow grease, but they do look and function much better!  They obviously don’t look as good as new, but I’m satisfied with the results.  What do you think?