I Like Rust

The story of this saw and how I found it is here.

Information about the F. Wesel Manufacturing Co. and its history is here.

Shortly after I got it home and thoroughly looked it over, I started doing a little cleanup. First, I cleaned up and painted the fence:

While the primer was drying, I took a razor blade and scraped the top, then went to work with sandpaper, sharpening stones and steel wool.

Here's what it looked like when I started:

Pretty rough.

After an hour or two, it looked much better:

The really cool thing is that it revealed the original metal planing marks:

Also, it revealed that the table insert is solid brass. I then painted and reassembled the fence:

That is as far as I have gotten, as of October of 2009.