How far to keep saws from Goldenrod dehumidifier?

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

Decided that even though I haven't had major issues, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, so I picked up a Goldenrod heater thing for my in-progress tool cabinet. Of course, not having planned ahead, now I've got to alter some of the tool hangers to place the thing.

I'm basically doing something akin to what Dominic Greco did with his cabinet, running through a hole in the veritcal divider into the two large cavities of the cabinet. Because I put a few tills beneath the main cavity on the left side, it puts the heater in the right hand side behind the saw plates of the saw till, rather than down behind the handles. So I need to alter the saw till to either change the angle the panel saw sit at or move them away from the back wall. (If I complete mounting the goldenrod the way things stand now, I'd be hitting the heater with the saw plates everytime I put a saw away.)

I also may need to move the way one of my backsaws hang, the brass plate would be kind of close to the heater as things stand, I haven't checked how close though.

I'm wondering how far folks think I should keep the saws away from the heater body? I don't see any info from Goldenrod; I can email them, and I'm sure they can tell me what to do to keep the heater safe, but I'm interested in keeping the saws safe. Is this a huge concern? The Goldenrod gets to "less than 150 degrees" according to the website (I assume that means the thermostat shuts off at 150?) I have the 12 inch model. I wouldn't assume that temperature would be high enough to bother the steel in sawplates, if it's not in direct contact, but I really don't know.

I would assume the minimum distance to keep things would be the same distance the heater stays from the back of the cabinet via the mounting brackets.

Anyone have any thoughts?

[george wilson]

I keep one in the bottom of my gun cabinet,pretty near the wooden butts of the rifles. Several years now,no cracking or damage. I suppose you should keep one several inches from wooden tool handles,planes,etc.,though,just to be safe. They(the rods) don't get terribly hot. After all,they were designed to mount UNDER the wrest pin blocks of pianos. We kept one under the wrest plank of a harpsichord I made for the museum in 1970. Tourists come in all day and for some reason don't often shut the door behind themselves. Let humidity in. Never figured out why. Do they all come from cities where all doors have automatic closing muscles????

[Mel Fulks]

If you are trying to prevent rust those Cortec rust shields so by Lee Valley work real well. I've got one sold under a different label 11 years old ,that still works. If the storage area door is kept closed most of the time no other rust preventive is needed. Spraying saws down is so messy, why do saws rust faster than other tools ?

[Adam Cruea]

I keep one in the bottom of my gun cabinet,pretty near the wooden butts of the rifles. Several years now,no cracking or damage. I suppose you should keep one several inches from wooden tool handles,planes,etc.,though,just to be safe. They(the rods) don't get terribly hot. After all,they were designed to mount UNDER the wrest pin blocks of pianos. We kept one under the wrest plank of a harpsichord I made for the museum in 1970. Tourists come in all day and for some reason don't often shut the door behind themselves. Let humidity in. Never figured out why. Do they all come from cities where all doors have automatic closing muscles????

In my experience, most people don't understand or simply don't know how awful humidity can be to wood and metal.

"Hey, my car is metal, and I can drive it in the rain and leave it out all day, nothing happens. Aren't your metal tools the same? And why is this area around wood cracking? It's not dry, and I wedged the wood in there nice and tight so it wouldn't move!"

*sigh*

Anyways, I'm glad someone actually asked about the Goldenrods. Once my bench is made, I plan on making a holder for the nest of saws I plan to acquire, and I was curious how close/far, etc these things needed to be to work effectively yet not dry out handles and stuff.

[John A. Callaway]

My goldenrod sits about two inches away from a LN 5.5 on the bottom shelf of my cabinet. the Bad Axe saw on the shelf above it. They just dont get hot enough to heat up the wood handles.

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

Forgot to come back to this thread; I've run the Goldenrod pretty much centered through a 1 1/2" hole. The saw plates of my panel saws sit about 3/4" away from the surface of the rod, and the brass back of one of my backsaws is about a 3/8" away. The tip of my pullsaw is also about that far, although it's over where the plastic cap covers the end of the rod.

The goldenrod has been running in the closed cabinet happily for a while now, and while the rod gets a bit too hot to touch (you can touch it, but I wouldn't grasp it fully for any length of time, although I don't think you'd scald yourself or anything) nothing near it seems to get too hot to hold or effect anything. Nearby wood surfaces get warm, but nothing worse than leaving something in the window on a medium sunny day.

I don't think normally I'd have any issues with rust with these tools, but we tend to wait a little too long to turn on the heat in our house, and during the fall, the drop in temperature does seem a little conducive to encouraging if mild corrosion on my saw plates, and that hazy-ness that shows up on brass bits. If nothing else, it's nice not to start working in the morning and have a block plane chill your hands. An ounce of prevention is certainly worth a pound of cure.

Looking back now, I was overly concerned. 150F isn't really that hot in the scheme of things.