Thanks to all who responded to my older post about saving rusted sockets. I have a new opportunity to tap the sage advice of FTE.

A young man in my church is in an automotive service technology program. Recently, he made the mistake of leaving his tool kit out and it walked off. I've volunteered to help scrounge up a replacement. (He's not in a position to take advantage of the vocational offers from the major tool companies yet.)

So, I happened to be wandering around and came across a garage sale. The guy is a retired construction contractor, has a custom Harley and trailer, and had one of his two '32 Ford rod projects in the garage. He was selling off most of his construction tools, but not much in the auto tools line.

But he told me to look in some cabinets, and I came across a very old socket set which he let me have for $5. It is a New Britain model 630 set -- combination of half-inch and 3/8 inch sockets. There's a very similar set shown in the alloy artifacts web pages, for those who may be familiar with them.

I now have two problems.

First, these are not chrome plated, and aren't bare steel either. They are evidently cadmium plated, and are a gray-white color. Does anyone have any idea how to go about cleaning these up? There is very little rust in the set, so this is the main hangup I have.

Second, this set uses removable drivers with two male ends. They look like a short 1/2" square post, but with the retaining ***** normally present in ratchet drives. Does anyone know of a source for replacements?

Thanks in advance for any advice. I'll try to get pictures up in a couple of days. (I plan on providing the young man with mostly spare and duplicate sockets and ratchets from my varied, uh, collection, but I may want to use some of these sockets in whatever kit I wind up accumulating for him.)

Looking forward to comments,

 

Gotta give ya props for helping out a young man turn wrenches.

Not sure what to clean then with though. I am rather unconventional maybe in that I will occasionally soak my toaks in diesel and use a wire wheel on my bench grinder to help remove accumulated grease and dirt.

I am a John Deere mechanic so my tools see everything!

Josh

 

You want to be pretty careful with cad plating. Cad dust is harmful, and some industries ( electronics for one ) are moving away from it.

Just an FYI ,in case you were considering any kind sanding or other mechanical cleanup.

 

closed cabinet with its own recovery system would be best as stated above cads bad. Don't breath the dust in off that stuff cause cnacer I had a run in with it at work before they stopped using it a few years back, Had to get blood test nad all kinds of crazy crap.