How to polish a saw plate

[Daniel Sutton]

Thanks, I'll have to get some and try it out.

[Shaun Mahood]

Man that works amazingly well - I tried it on my saws, planes, and holdfasts and it is quicker and easier than everything I've tried before. I think I may have to turn down the lights in my shop when I'm done
Thanks a lot Christian, I have a bunch of saws that need a lot of clean up and I was kind of dreading doing it before this.

[Brent VanFossen]

Thanks, Christian. I have a few old handsaws that need some polish. And the sandpaper method is dirty hard work.

[Edward Moore]

It works so well because of a chemical reaction between the aluminium and the rust - one steals the extra oxygen atom from the other causing the rust to break down. The polish just sweetens the deal by adding an abrasive and usually some cleaning solvent for good measure. The heat from the scrubbing provides energy for the reaction. I agree that this works on pretty much everything in need of some quick rust removal and polish. Definitely recommend Autosol.

[Michael Ray Smith]

Interesting! I wonder if there's something more than just abrasion going on with the aluminum foil. The reason I mention it is that there's a great way to remove tarnish from silver using aluminum foil. The tarnish is mostly silver sulfide, which can be physically removed by polishing it, but that means that you lose a little bit of the silver each time you polish it. Another method is to wrap the tarnished silver in aluminum foil and immerse it in a warm solution of salt and baking soda. There's an electrochemical reaction between the elemental aluminum and the silver sulfide, with one of the products being elemental silver. In theory, you don't lose any silver that way, but in my experience you still have to polish the silver anyway to get a nice shiny surface (I use toothpaste as a polish), but it's a lot easier than removing all the tarnish by polishing. Now back to your rusty saw -- the iron in the rust is not as easy to reduce as silver, but it's still slightly easier to reduce iron than aluminum (I think), so I wonder if the physical scrubbing of the saw blade with aluminum foil is helped out a bit by chemistry. I know there are other Neanderthals who are far better chemists than I am, and I invite them to correct anything I may have wrong.

[Paul Saffold]

This has jogged a long forgotten memory of my mom cleaning her iron with aluminum foil and salt. As I remember, and I could be completely mistaken, she sprinkled salt on and rubbed like crazy with wadded up foil. Also Aluminum foil was not something to be used once and discarded. It was washed and dried just like any of the dishes until it had too many holes.

I guess I should I should add for those who aren't familiar with an iron. They were used to remove wrinkles from clothes.

[Dale Coons]

Autosol looks to be a great product. A quick check of the auto store chain websites and the blue and orange boxes turned up bupkiss. I see it online at amazon and other places including the autosol website, but the shipping more than doubles the price. $12 for a $9 tube of product seems silly. Anyone know of a chain or store type that might carry it locally?

[lowell holmes]

I bought mine from Lee Valley.

[Lloyd Robins]

This is a late reply, but I was just directed here from another thread. Thank you for the information. I will be giving it a try.

[Richard Line]

Edward, thanks for the chemistry on this method. It helped ease my curiosity factor. With or without that info, I was going to give this method a go.

[Mike Allen1010]

Autosol looks to be a great product. A quick check of the auto store chain websites and the blue and orange boxes turned up bupkiss. I see it online at amazon and other places including the autosol website, but the shipping more than doubles the price. $12 for a $9 tube of product seems silly. Anyone know of a chain or store type that might carry it locally?

I'm with you Dale, I would love to pick up some Autosol at a local retailer and would appreciate hearing from anyone who knows where it might be stocked locally other than mail order.

Thanks, Mike

[Mark Baldwin III]

Try checking your local grocery store. I know I can get several different metal polish compounds at mine, I believe Autosol is amongst them. Flitz is definitely there. As soon as I am able to get back to work, I'm going to try this out.

[Bill White]

MAAS polish also works well.
Bill

[Adrian Ponik]

Not to resurrect a dead thread, but I was in my local Woodcraft last week and discovered they now carry Autosol. I don't know if it was just my store (can't find it on their website) but it was sitting on the shelf next to all the polishing cloths and associated stuff. Not cheap at just under $10 a tube, but that tube will sure do a lot of saw plates.