Buying tools that have been in a flood?

[SteveL]

A friend if a friend recently had his wood working shop flooded up to the roof and has decided to shut it down since he is in his 80's. He is getting rid if everything and I'm curious what items to avoid considering it was all under water for at least 2-3 days?

[PaulC]

In some ways hand tools are a safer opportunity than power tools. You should be able to see what you've got. Just clean 'em and oil 'em ASAP.

[Pat Zabrocki]

I'm in St. Charles, If its all right let me know how to get in on this.
thanks
Pat

[Mike Brady]

If you are referring to hand tools, I don't see a problem restoring them after only two days of submersion. Obviously the wood parts would be suspect. Saw blades (handsaws) would definitely rust while in the water that long, but it would be surface rust that should come off with a razor blade scraper. The question here would be how were the tools treated before the flood? If it was me, I would get a gallon of WD-40 from HD and get everything coated with it.

[GNP]

Usually flood water contains lots of mud. I would avoid any electrical tools.

[iclark]

Offer to help with the clean up (and bring friends). You will likely wind up paying more, but the tools will be in better shape and the karma is worth it.

Rinse mud and gunk off with clean water as soon as possible, dry them, then coat all of the iron and steel with WD-40 or Johnson's Original (not floor) paste wax. Coat wood withe the paste wax.

Electrically powered stationary tools will be suspect but several folks here have been through this and should be able to help. I would suggest posting the flood question in poaer tools as well if you have not already done so,

[EricU]

after my mom's stuff was in the Nashville flood of 2010, I rehabbed all of her commercial sewing machines and a couple of consumer level machines. There weren't any problems with any of the motors. The motors on the commercial machines are more like a stationary woodworking machine than you might expect. In fact, they come standard with a 3 phase motor. I suppose on some older electric motors the bearings might not be sealed or something.

I haven't quite gotten around to figuring out what's up with the fabric saw. I'm thinking she may have started that up when it was still waterlogged.

[YSU65]

I cleaned up several motors from the 2011 flood here in upstate NY. Took apart the motors, Scrubbed and rinsed parts in water then in denatured alcohol. Replaced bearings and start capacitors. This was pretty much what a commercial outfit did for a company that was flooded in Sidney, NY. Everything worked after cleaning. Motors included one from a Uni TS, a lathe motor, and several smaller ones. I could not get a router apart and that one was scrapped. He had tons of hand tools that were flooded but did not even try to dry them out when the water went down. These were pretty much a mess. Good luck.

[Blacky's Boy]

I restored my entire basement wood shop full of power tools after Hurricane Floyd filled my basement with 6 feet of muddy water. I was able to save just about every tool except for a Porter Cable 12V drill that I accidentally turned on while I was cleaning up.

CRC spray came in VERY useful during that rebuild process.

[SteveL]

A little update........talked to my friend that has been helping with the clean up and said that everything was under water for close to a week and has been out a couple of days. The hand tools have not been looked at yet as there has been so much debri that they will finally get to them tomorrow. I plan on going there tomorrow to help out so I should get a better idea of what's there and the condition. Almost all of the power tools are either Steel City or Jet and appear to have a lot of surface rust on the cast area but what water has been drained out was pretty clean. He said that there was very little mud in anything so that's positive. Will know more tomorrow.