Restoring a Crusty Ridgid Pipe Cutter
35,302
Published 2021-06-22
This No. 1-2 pipe cutter was made by the Ridge Tool Company, otherwise known as the same Rigid toolmaker you commonly see today. Although the patent date for this pipe cutter dates to the 1920’s, Rigid relocated their operations to Elyria, OH in 1943. This probably puts the manufacture date of this pipe cutter in the 1940’s or 1950’s, especially considering that all the other tools in the crate with it were also made around that same time. The 2021 version of this would retail in the range of $100-$300.
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Video timestamps:
0:00 – 1:00 Overview
1:01 – 3:33 Disassembly
3:34 – 4:20 Sanding and polishing pins
4:21 – 5:28 Sanding and polishing rollers
5:29 – 6:40 Sanding and polishing cutting wheel
6:41 – 8:24 Electrolysis of jaws and main body
8:25 – 10:51 Wire wheeling and sanding of jaw and main body
10:52 – 12:43 Priming and painting jaw and main body
12:44 – 13:59 Wire wheeling, sanding, and polishing handle
14:00 – 14:25 Priming and painting handle
14:26 – 16:09 Reassembling
16:10 – 16:34 Before and After
16:35 – 17:29 Testing
17:30 – 17:44 Thanks for watching and please subscribe!
Project notes:
This is the first 4K UHD Catalyst Restorations video! Video was shot using a Samsung Galaxy S21+ in 4K UHD. Flagship phone cameras have come a long way!
Disassembly was straightforward. The rollers and cutting wheel must be removed first before the bottom jaw can be brought up enough to remove from the main body. This is a typical disassembly of most pipe cutters. Sanding and polishing the pins and rollers was straightforward as well – sanding only enough to remove the rust but not enough to change critical dimensions. Sanded to 2000 grit and then polished with white compound. The drill press helps make sanding go quickly. For the jaws and main body rust removal, a DIY electrolysis setup can be done like so: • Infinite Rust Removal? DIY Electrolys... . I use a modified laptop charger for all my electrolysis and it works perfectly. For casting/forging clean-up I decided to only remove the worst of it. I could’ve spent days grinding and polishing all surfaces perfectly smooth, but in my opinion that takes away most of the character it has left. For priming, I tried out Rustoleum’s 2 in 1 filler/sandable primer. Even with 3 coats and after some light sanding it didn’t smooth the surface noticeably; at least not for the time and effort it took. I went back to self-etching primer for the main body. For paint I originally chose Rustoleum’s metallic spray paint in dark cherry, because I wanted to capture Rigid’s traditional red pipe cutter color but with some flair….and also every store in a 30 mile radius and online was sold out of Rustoleum’s brighter ‘apple red’ metallic paint which was my first choice. The spray painting you see in this video is the dark cherry color, which when wet is a vibrant metallic. However, after drying it dulled considerably – very disappointing. I switched to Rustoleum’s hammered red, which was both more vibrant in color and also gave a hint of metallic texture. I sealed everything afterwards with clear coat. Assembly was also straightforward – no hang-ups there except for paint in a few spots that had to be removed where the rollers fit in. I tested the pipe cutter on a scrap piece of aluminum, which was like a hot knife through butter; totally overkill using this pipe cutter on it, but I didn’t have any scrap steel tubing lying around. Just watch the cutting demonstration portion at 0.25x and you’ll get the idea of what it would look like! Total project time was roughly 40 hours.
#restoration #pipecutter #toolrestoration
All Comments (21)
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Clearly you restored this tool to well beyond its condition when originally sold, and perfectly as always. Always a pleasure to watch you work.
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Looks nice. All my Ridgid tools are just cleaned and BLO'd. I purchased a pipe cutter in similar condition and it was a great investment. It probably paid for itself 10 fold the first time I put it to work.
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I just got one of these when my father in law passed and it was all gummed up and not working. You saved my cookies on the tear down! Although not a restore, just make it function again, I thank you for the how to! I was going to start wailing on it to see if there's a pin in it for the screw drive!
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Very nice, I loved the view from inside the pipe.
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Beautiful restoration. Nicely done !
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Love the video! Great work!
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Beautiful restoration, if this was a car it would be classed as concours.
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Lovely color, I'm looking forward to more of your craft. Thanks for sharing 👍 😊
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Brilliant job mate, looks great!
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Very cool well done.
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Beatiful 👍
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beautiful job buddy, i like it 👍
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Magnífico trabajo lo felicito.
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Buen trabajo
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For once it's good to see a good design doesn't change I have the same pipe cutter but it was made in 2000
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I just had to sub "scribe" for that one. LOL. Nice work.
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Sempre eccezionale
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Happy New Year!! I was wondering if you had some stickers of your channel that I could have? I try to get stickers of all my favorite restorers to slap on my toolbox.
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Great job on the restoration and awesome color choice. Was this pipe cutter was made pre-Home Depot owning them? Okay, my dumb self read the whole description (I always forget to do that)....I had no idea they had been around that long.
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Just curious , but wouldn’t a lube like Remington Remmoil be better to Han just no lube at all ? I’ve started using it on a couple of items . I’m cleans light grease and puts a Teflon coating on there by preventing rust . I use I on my firearms and a couple of tools . I have the tendency to go overboard sometimes when doing things . Forgot to mention, the Remmoil is clear Ann not messy like normal grease would be . Keep up the great restoration work, you are inspiring fir others to get out Tyler and do the same .
