There's a lot to be said for fixing old things, eh, @swampratt ? Pete reminds me a bit of my dad. We had lots of things simply because they were old and broken and my dad could fix just about anything.
Here is a tip: That putty scraper he used to scrape gaskets near the end.
Cut that blade down until it is about 1 to 1.5" long.
It makes it much stiffer and removes gaskets 10X better.