With restoration, are you really getting your old tool back?

[Don Pablo]

What about a whole real Trilobite set into a fake rock? 

[Aloha]

Going simply by the questioned posed "With restoration, are you really getting your old tool back?" my simple answer is No.  With the varying degrees of restoration I believe you have altered your old tool and thus lost its identity in terms of "life" lived.  All restoration causes irreversible change to the tool.  You have altered that tools history permanently.   

Now after saying that I believe there are degrees of what many of us consider restoration which include preservation and conservation at the very least. 

I am looking at the overall goal rather than "my knife has a ( fill in the blank ) wrong with it" and I want to fix it.  Simply put, if you are wanting the item to retain its history then its current condition should be guarded.  Cleaning can and does alter an items condition thru time so even cleaning must be done cautiously. 

Start with why you want to do anything to your tool?  Then you can decide which actions if any make the most sense. 

I recently got a Wengerinox knife.  I initially thought it would be nice to send it to Victorinox to see what can be done.  I posted my thought on MTO and almost immediately thought to do the very least to the knife, which I will do. 

My process will be conservation.  I just don't want to knife to deteriorate while in my custody.           

[Valkie]

Just a thought;

You are not the you who you were 10 years ago either.

Your body is constantly replacing bits and pieces all the time, I read somewhere that your entire body is replaced every 10 years.

I think the little cells that are replacing my bits must be slack, because they aint doing a good job of it.

Most parts dont work like they used to, some are gone for good (my hair) some have put things in the wrong place. (hair on my head is now on my back)

And functional accuracy is sadly less than ideal (cant see as well)

Guess thats just life.

[dks]

This thread has been restored           

[Tasky]

My best mate's cousin is 'rebuilding and restoring' a wooden sailing boat that's over a century old. A very large perentage of it has been replaced with new parts.
As to whether it's the same ship - It has been used, abused and neglected over many decades. Most ship parts were designed to be replaced when they wore out, but the neglect means these ones weren't, so arguably he's just doing 113 years of routine maintenance all at once...

All down to personal feelings, really.