Tool cleaning Info...Not in Q&A forum???

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notmartha Bay City, MI(Zone 6a) Mar 23, 2003

I looked around the site for awhile and i cant find a post about how to clean your -pruners,clippers?
If you have an suggestion please post here or point me towards the link all ready posted.
:)

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Zanymuse Scotia, CA(Zone 9b) Mar 24, 2003

I use 2 pickle buckets. One is filled with coarse sand and treated with used motor oil. I use it to clean shovels spades and trowels. The other has water and bleach to clean pruning shears and clippers. After I clean them I use 3 in 1 oil on the pivot points and springs and then lightly wipe the blades with the oil rag to prevent rust.

Hope this helps you.

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MOLLYBEE Villa Rica, GA(Zone 7a) Mar 24, 2003

I remember reading somewhere about the cleaning of your clippers/pruners in between uses. Seems they used a spray bottle with some sort of mixture in it. They were saying that you HAD to spray the clippers in between each pruning, so that you would not spread diseases on to the other plants. So in other words after you pruned one plant, spray it before moving on to the next plant. Made sense to me, but I have never done it that way. I don't know where I heard this, it could have been on here or on TV. Might have even been Martha Stewart!

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Terry Murfreesboro, TN(Zone 7a) Mar 24, 2003

You know, I've always wanted to do that (the oil/sand mixture), as it makes a lot of sense. However, I didn't pursue it when it was pointed out that used motor oil, even though it would be trace amounts clinging to the tools, still isn't a "good thing" (as Miz Martha might say) to have in my vegetable bed's soil.

So then I found a blurb where someone was using vegetable oil. But vegetable oil, in a shed all summer is gonna get mighty rancid mighty quick.

So I still didn't pursue the sand/oil bucket idea.

But recently I read where someone else suggested mineral oil, which doesn't go rancid, and is (arguably) a more earth-friendly substitute for used motor oil.

I'd love to know if anyone has tried it, and if so, does it work? No smell from the oil?

Or is there another option out there?

This message was edited Monday, Mar 24th 8:41 PM

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elsie Mar 24, 2003

I don't know if it does any good but I wipe my pruners and clippers with alcohol between everything and the tomatoes. I put a small sprayer in the small container of alcohol and away I go.

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rutholive Tonasket, WA(Zone 5a) Mar 25, 2003

I think cutting tools can also be cleaned when being used to prevent possible spread of and disease, by having a container of fairly strong clorox mis handy andd dip pruners of whatever into that.Fireblight is a problem in this area, and if one has it show up, the limb-branch must be cut off back of the blighted piece and burned. Every time a branch is cut it is necessary to disinfect the cutting tool. Donna

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