Update- 12-13-06 Before & after electrolisys- yo diggummup "skate key"

[Ed-NH]

Update- 12-13-06 Before & after electrolisys- yo diggummup "skate key"

Hi I had to follow up on diggumup's great post about the "skate" keys. After seeing the picture he posted of all the skate keys I was psyched. I dug this out of my widget jar for you all to see. I am going to do a restoration and preservation on it. I will post the after pictures of it when I am done. I found it in the same area where the civil war buttons came from. Not sure how it wound up there though.

 

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[phool]

Re: yo diggummup "skate key"

when I read skate key all I could think of was the ones from back in my skareboarding days!
What exactly is it?

 

[stefen]

Re: yo diggummup "skate key"

At one time, in the olden days, skates were strapped to your street shoes. usually with a leather ankle strap and a toe clamp...the key was used to tighten the toe clamp.

By the way, in them old days gone by, most everyone wore shoes with thick leather soles, not the slipper, thongs or tennis shoes of today.

Assuming, of course, you were fortunate enough to live in a community that actually had sidewalks.

 

[gord]

Re: yo diggummup "skate key"

In those days you didn't even need sidewalks, just as long as the street was paved.
Gord

 

[Ed-NH]

Re: yo diggummup "skate key" After pictures

Here is the key after electrolisys. It came out pretty nice.

 

[warsawdaddy]

Re: Update- 12-13-06 Before & after electrolisys- yo diggummup "skate key"

Stefen,What you mean - 'olden days'? Careful with some of us 'oldies',huh,Monty?

 

[Monty]

Re: Update- 12-13-06 Before & after electrolisys- yo diggummup "skate key"

Hey, I'm just a spring chicken you old farts! Sigh..I only wish it was true. Monty

 

[warsawdaddy]

Re: Update- 12-13-06 Before & after electrolisys- yo diggummup "skate key"

I'm surprised that heel and toe steel baseball spikes haven't been found.When I was in grade school,you could buy them and the shoe shop would tack them on your dress shoes,only kind of 'spikes' we could afford.That's what we used.Of course,none of our dress shoes had tongues in them.We had already cut them out for our slingshots.And we had to have red rubber for them.Those synthetic black innertubes that showed up during the war,just didn't have the 'stretch'.We canvassed every filling station in town to find the old red rubber tubes.

 

[stefen]

Re: Update- 12-13-06 Before & after electrolisys- yo diggummup "skate key"

Olden days...Hmmmmmmmmmm...let me think...musta been any time before the last great War...Vietnam. And in some cases, Desert Storm.

I'm trying not to date myself (or Monty or Warsawdaddy) however, being raised on a farm we had dirt lanes and gravel roads...no asphalt until we moved to California and then it was a choice of girls over skates....the skates lost.

In fact, we had a privy and didn't have indoor plumbing til about age 15 or so.

For those of you yunguns that are not familar with the term 'Privy', its simply a scheithaus.

 

[diggummup]

Re: Update- 12-13-06 Before & after electrolisys- yo diggummup "skate key"

Very nice! That thing cleaned up very well.Did you use an electrolysis method that you learned on here,or were you already familiar with it? For those who missed the other post,here is the photos that id'd enhh's skate key.The one on the bottom left.It looks like a real old one that you've found,cool find!

 

[Ed-NH]

Re: Update- 12-13-06 Before & after electrolisys- yo diggummup "skate key"

Very nice! That thing cleaned up very well.Did you use an electrolysis method that you learned on here,or were you already familiar with it? For those who missed the other post,here is the photos that id'd enhh's skate key.The one on the bottom left.It looks like a real old one that you've found,cool find!

Hi dugummup, I used electrolysis on it. I have used it before on non-ferrous but never knew that it existed for ferrous items. I found one of the techniques on the cleaning and preserving forum. I used the anode/cathode method on this key with a battery charger and sodium hydroxide as the electrolite. I also tried the zinc and sodium hydroxide bath treatment but like the battery charger better. It really digs in and cleans off the rust. The best part about it is that it can not be overdone, it will not damage your iron if left in too long. I can't wait to hit the woods on Sunday for some more relics before things freeze over! Thanks to all for the replies and for all the great info on the forums.