No, not me, I'm doomed. When I came to Canada in the early 70's I didn't bring much with me, in particular no tools save a pocket knife and a couple of other small items. One of the first tools I bought here was a six inch Crescent wrench. A few years ago it vanished until recently. It somehow wound up under the edge of the floor mat on the driver's side of the Ranger. Not a good place to be, especially in winter. It was soaked in salt slush repeatedly for some years until I found it one day. It looked like this...



Not a pretty sight. Normally I would just toss it but this is a genuine Made in USA back in the good old days real American tool. I decided to see if it could be saved. I started with an all day soak in a strong solution of phosphoric acid. This removed all the visible rust and revealed a heavily pitted surface, not encouraging. However, having nothing to lose I continued. Next treatment was spraying with a lubricant similar to WD-40 and letting it soak. After a couple of days of this I began beating the wrench on a block of wood occasionally. After a week of this I started using the partly open jaws to try to pry a piece of 1/8" sheet metal to loosen the jaws. More lube, more beating and more prying.

Today I decided it was time for the heat treatment. Since the wrench claims to be made of Crestoloy (what ever that is ) I proceeded carefully. Using a flap wheel I polished up the sides of the jaws to remove the pitting so I could see the metal clearly. I turned on the torch and heated the wrench until I saw a tiny indication that the the pointy tips below the adjuster were beginning to color. I removed the heat and began spraying with similar-to-WD-40 and bashing on the wood block intermittently. Rust came out of the adjuster and slide in large quantities.

Eventually, with the careful application of minor brute force to the jaws and the adjuster (via Vicegrip, yes, the real thing, another story, left clamped on the underside of the Land Rover for two years)... where was I? Oh yeah, brute force. It finally loosened, pretty much all at once until it was working just like it never rusted. After buffing and an application of cold bluing it looks like this: