Years ago a friend and I found some old York dumbells at the local play-it-again sports. There were two 70lb globe style, two 80lb blob style, and two 85lb blob style. We each took a globe and I got the 85lb’ers. Not sure where they date, the globes are obviously very old and the blobs could be any where from the 50’s-70’s. I stashed them in a closet at my parents house before I left home and pretty much forgot about them. Well yesterday I was over helping them clean off the screened in porch when I found my old dumbells, weathered and rusty. They seem salvageable to me and I want to bring them back to life, just because their a cool part of iron history.
The only thing I can think off is just going at them with CLR and a wire brush but I figured I would put this up here just to see if any of you guys have any better ideas of going about it.
The rust isn’t going to completely eat them up, unless you left them soaking in salt water for a few hundred years. Hose 'em down with wd 40 and work them over with some “0000” steel wool to get the loose rust off, then rub off the oil with paper towels until the paper towels come off clean. Leave the brown patina on them. Gives them character.