Restoring My Mom’s Old Pruning Shears

I remember these shears from when I was a kid, they’ve got to be over 40 years old and my mom still uses them every year to tend her roses in the garden. With Dad gone, they haven’t been oiled or maintained, and she says the spring mechanism is completely rusted and stiff.

My mom is 80 and struggles to use these shears but she’s sentimental about these because my father bought them for her all those years ago. I told her I’d buy her a new pair, but I’d really love to restore these for her instead.

The rust, the dirt, and the wear—it all makes this a perfect WD‑40 project, and I want to help her keep using something that means a lot to her. I’m hoping to bring the spring back to life and get these shears working smoothly again.

I hit it with two rounds of WD‑40, letting each soak for a couple of hours. Then I scrubbed everything down with steel wool and an old toothbrush, finishing with a light coat of WD‑40 to keep the spring from rusting or sticking again. Now WD-40 has given myself a yearly excuse to visit Mom and keep these running.