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Thread: Rust prevention

  1. #16
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    Just have all those tools plated in Bronze......hmmmm, might make them too heavy, though....

  2. #17
    Thanks very much to everyone for the advice. I recently moved from Las Vegas Nevada, where there is no water, to Katonah NY, where if I get any more water, I will build an ark.

  3. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by Richard Wolgemuth View Post
    Wax and Oil. Cheap stuff. Mineral oil thinned with WD-40 or whatever is about and Johnson's wax.
    Thinning mineral oil with WD-40 doesn't help it evaporate, because those relatively long mineral oil polymers don't get shortened when you mix them with the relatively short aliphatics in WD-40. If your goal is to create something that dries and leaves the wax behind like Boeshield or CRC SP-400 then you need to start with something much lighter, like Naptha. If on the other hand the oil isn't meant to dry, then there's really no functional reason to have the wax in there.

    EDIT: Do you mean wax and oil used separately, as opposed to mixed? If so disregard :-)
    Last edited by Patrick Chase; 07-21-2017 at 10:16 AM.

  4. #19
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    Wax and use a dehumidifier!!! Works foe me....
    Jerry

  5. #20
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    Put them to work as often as you can, let the work keep the rust away....or make an "Oil can" like Sellers uses...

    Remember, I do happen to have my shop in a dampish basement....

  6. #21
    I have a garage workshop 1/4 mile away from the Atlantic ocean in North Carolina. At the end of every day I wipe down every tool used that day with WD40. Every two weeks I dust my tool shelves and wipe down all tools. Never had a rust problem with these tools. Occasionally I put a seldom used tool down somewhere other than the tool shelves. When I find it again months later I usually have a rust problem.

  7. #22
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    Quote Originally Posted by David Warkentin View Post
    Hi all. As I begin to collect more tools to do work by hand I am wondering how to prevent rust from forming. I live in humid Alabama and don't want any on my planes!
    This subject has been discussed many times.

    The first and most important rule to follow to protect your steel tools from corrosion is to keep them clean. Sawdust and dust settling on the steel will induce rust, as surely as politicians attract dirty money, and no matter how much oil or wax or Hogwarts magic you apply to your tools, dust and dirt will make it all for naught. So store your tools in a way that keeps the dust off them. Open shelves, pegboards and open racks look cool and may be convenient while actually working in the workshop, but actively promote rust.

    The next rule to follow is to insulate your steel tools when they are not in use from rapid temperature swings that will cause condensation to form on them, especially in humid climates. Once again, open shelves, racks, and pegboards don't cut it long-term. At least wrap them up in something to insulate them from temperature swings.

    You may find it difficult to believe, but fresh newspaper that still smells of ink is an effective and cheap material for insulating and protecting tools. Apparently, the ink evaporates and coats the metal protecting it from rust, similar to VCI paper. Old newspaper does not have the same effect, and can make things worse. A hardware store located near where I live has a cubbyhole built against the exterior uninsulated concrete wall of his building with saws standing on end directly on the concrete slab. The 87 year-old owner of the store wrapped these saws in newspaper and stored them there 27 years ago (newspaper has dates). No rust has developed except in the case of saws that were unwrapped and then re-wrapped in the old newspaper

    If you are like me, your sweat and skin oils contains salt and acids that will cause rust. If you want your metal plane bodies and saws to remain shiny, don't touch them with bare skin, and if you do, wipe them down and then oil them before storing them away.

    On the other hand, another name for rust is patina. Some people intentionally wipe their planes and sawblades with their hands to ensure the metal surfaces develop a nice brown patina. Oil applied to the patina will keep the rust from going much deeper. Not my cuppa tea.

    Paint is the best and most durable product sold in a can for preventing rust. Those paints containing galvalume are the very best. For most tools we need bare metal, though.

    Whatever product you use, remember that any liquid eventually evaporates, including all varieties of oils. Vegetable oils are especially ineffective because in addition to evaporating, they quickly oxidize and polymerize transforming into sticky, rust-promoting muck. As Patrick mentioned, true camellia oil (which you will have a hard time finding in the US or Europe) is hopeless. The camellia oil commonly available is actually food-grade mineral oil with scent and color added. It works OK, but more importantly, it makes money for retailers without creating a health hazard liability for them. You see, it might touch the customer's skin. While it is more of a health hazard, commonly available synthetic motor oil is better than nearly all petroleum products in this regard, and is very cost effective.

    Sorry to say it, but WD-40 is hopeless. It works short-term, and is very convenient, but it evaporates relatively quickly. It was designed to evaporate. And it was designed to leave little residue after it evaporates.

    Paste wax is pleasant to use, but I am sorry to say that it too is relatively ineffective. I know lots of people swear by this and that brand of furniture wax, or floor wax, or micro-crystalline wax-in-a-can, but there has been a lot of commercial testing by professionals, the results of which clearly show that it isn't half as effective as paraffin wax.

    After paint, the most effective product for preventing corrosion is paraffin wax and the many compounds that employ it. I first heard this news from a professional production engineer with a Japanese company that produces extremely expensive, high-precision, hardened and ground, high-carbon steel components for machines that make semiconductors. I had just built a factory for them, and so they spoke very frankly with me. Corrosion is a very serious concern for these people everyday of the year, in all environments around the world where their products are shipped, so they didn't screw around with traditions, or fads, or online BS, or the advice of shills working for magazines, but conducted physical comparison tests. Besides being easy to apply, relatively non-toxic and inexpensive, paraffin has the ability to totally seal steel's surfaces, as well as all the dips and scratches it might contain, from moisture and oxygen, while remaining in place after the carrier evaporates, as Patrick noted.

    Patrick also mentioned CR 3-36. This is very good product, much better than Boeshield because it displaces moisture. I have experienced rust with Boeshield. Boeshield leaves a coat of heavy paraffin wax which is not convenient, IMO. I believe CR 3-36 is also paraffin based, but is much lighter and more user friendly for handtools used frequently. Excellent for saws because it coats the nooks and crannies of the teeth very effectively. CR makes several corrosion-prevention products that all work well, but 3-36 is the most convenient to use.

    CorrosionX is a great product, but it stinks something fierce. Just my opinion.

    Mothballs in a closed airtight spaces/container are surprisingly effective at preventing rust. I put a cake inside my toolbox in the wet months.

    Whatever corrosion-prevention methodology you choose, be sure it's easy to use, and then actually use it frequently. Convenience and speed are everything in this regard. I keep an oilpot lubed with 5W Mobile synthetic oil on my workbench at all times. I wipe each tool as I use it with this oilpot (even my wooden plane's soles), and at the end of the day. If I will not be using a tool for a while, I wipe it down, and give it a few swipes of oil, or a squirt of CR 3-36. I store my tools in a closed toolchest or in closed boxes. Some of them I wrap in fresh newspaper as both cushion and insulation.

    This regimen has been effective in high humidity, high temperature swings, and on Pacific islands with salt always in the air and mixed into the dust. Give it a try.

    Stan
    Last edited by Stanley Covington; 07-23-2017 at 11:58 AM.

  8. #23
    We dehumidify primarily because of the need to build at target relative humidity (38%-40% for bracing, and 42% otherwise) to allow an instrument to handle a fairly wide range of RH values in service. The secondary benefit is that tools will not generally rust at 50% RH or below unless the surfaces are coated with moisture and other contaminants (cold tool brought into warm shop, salt-laden perspiration, etc) As mentioned, dirty tools have the same issue...dust, grime, etc. hold perspiration, and the salts in sweat speed the process of corrosion. Wax and oil helped when I had a shed shop in LA (Lower Alabama) and a garage in southern Louisiana. Coastal areas are miserable places for tools, but avoiding the temptation to throw open the doors and windows every time there is a nice breeze off the water helps avoid some problems.

  9. #24
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    I keep tools that I don't use regularly in a job box in an unheated garage. Those tools get coated and I mean coated to the point that it's a bit of work to prepare them for use. CRC is what I use for that because it sprays into the nooks and crannies. It's not much work compared to rust. The tools I use regularly are keep in the basement, heated or air conditioned. When I put those tools in the box they are wiped down with 3 in 1 to the point that they need to be wiped off before use, again not much trouble compared to rust. Works for me.
    Jim

  10. #25
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    Quote Originally Posted by Stanley Covington View Post
    Whatever product you use, remember that any liquid eventually evaporates, including all varieties of oils. Vegetable oils are especially ineffective because in addition to evaporating, they quickly oxidize and polymerize transforming into sticky, rust-promoting muck. As Patrick mentioned, true camellia oil (which you will have a hard time finding in the US or Europe) is hopeless.
    There are a fair number of people selling it as a safer alternative to white mineral oil for skincare. That's how I got hold of mine. The fact that I had to look high and low for something that many woodworkers (including "famous" ones at the mags) claimed to be using should have been a big red flag, but sometimes I'm slow. As we've both noted, real Camellia oil is a train wreck for tool protection. I can guarantee you that anybody who claims to have had success with it is using "sword steel oil", aka white mineral oil with food coloring and scent added.

  11. #26
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    Quote Originally Posted by Stanley Covington View Post
    Patrick also mentioned CR 3-36. This is very good product, much better than Boeshield because it displaces moisture. I have experienced rust with Boeshield. Boeshield leaves a coat of heavy paraffin wax which is not convenient, IMO. I believe CR 3-36 is also paraffin based, but is much lighter and more user friendly for handtools used frequently. Excellent for saws because it coats the nooks and crannies of the teeth very effectively. CR makes several corrosion-prevention products that all work well, but 3-36 is the most convenient to use.
    3-36's paraffin content is low if any. Boeshield and CRC SP-400 go the low+high route, meaning that they mix volatile low-molecular-wright hydrocarbons for wettability/penetration and high-weight paraffins that form a solid barrier when the low-weight stuff flashes off. CRC 3-36 and CorrosionX both use a low+medium approach, meaning that they also use volatile low-weight hydrocarbons to wet/penetrate, but medium-weight non-drying hydrocarbons (probably not far from your suggestion of motor oil) to form a liquid barrier.

    The problem with Boeshield, SP-400, and other solid wax coatings is that the jig is up once that thin paraffin coating is penetrated in any way (say, by bumping it while removing an adjacent tool). In contrast liquid-barrier products like 3-36 and CorrosionX can still flow even after the volatile components have flashed off, so it takes more severe handling to leave a lasting gap in the barrier.

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