On Sun, 03 Aug 2003 06:11:48 +0200, Ulf B wrote:

Tom Gardner wrote:

Use them!

Could not agree with you more! The absolutely best way to preserve old
tools and machines is to use them and keep them in working order.
Interest in and use of old tools does not exclude modern equipment – I
spend my day working with ProEngineer for example.

The problem arises when you have to repair and recondition the old
machines. How do you go about that without destroying historical and
monetary value?

There isn't a lot of monetary value in these machines you're thinking
of. They were produced in industrial quantities, and, so far, there
aren't any collectors to bid up the price on them.

If you have an antique piece of furniture for example you can easily
destroy most of the value by restoring it in the wrong way. It can go
from 10000 USD to 100 in no time. Few people realize that the same goes
for old tools but to a lesser extent.

A much lesser extent. Look at the relative size of the community
collecting and displaying antique furniture vs that for antique tools.

If you can preserve the value of these old goodies at the same time as
you preserve a small piece of industrial history I think this is a good
thing.

If you've been fortunate enough to find an 1800's machine with
more-or-less intact original finish and in working condition, by all
means do what you can to maintain it. If, on the other hand, all you
have is a bit of the original paint left in a sheltered corner --
well, there might be some virtue to painting over it as opposed to
removing it before repainting, so that some collector someday can
determine what the original finish was, but other than that, if you're
going to use it as a machine, you have to put it, and keep it, in a
useable condition. That may mean refinishing, replacing parts,
scraping...

Al Moore