Green wood and rust on the lathe

[Dick Durbin]

I, my new lathe, and everything around the lathe got our first green wood shower last night. When I got done playing last night I cleaned everything up, wiped down all the tools and the lathe and put a light coat of Top-Cote on the exposed metal of the lathe, trying to prevent any rust.

Now I am wondering if I messed up by making the bed slick. What do you experienced guys do after you have turned a piece of green wood?

[Jon Shively]

By no stretch of the imagination am I an experienced turner, but when I turn green wood before I quit for the day I just sweep off my lathe with a bench broom and haven't had any rust (knock on wood).

[Mark Pruitt]

wd-40 and paper towels should do the job for you.

[John Hart]

....What do you experienced guys do after you have turned a piece of green wood?

Throughout the accumulation of my eons of experience, I've found that I usually forget to clean up and then spend the next day removing rust from the Ways. I'm real intelligent, so after 5 or 6 incidents of noticing that oils cause my tailstock to drift, I started to use WD-40 instead. It's a nice solvent. I keep it next to the lathe. I'll need it tonight because I turned some green maple last night and I don't think I cleaned up afterward......again.

[Jim King]

One of the advantages of having a homemade lathe is that you dont worry about it much and after turning wet wood I go have a cold beer. You can see the rainbow on the wall from wet wood.

[Bill Boehme]

One of the advantages of having a homemade lathe is that you dont worry about it much and after turning wet wood I go have a cold beer. You can see the rainbow on the wall from wet wood.

I would guess that the segmented vase/urn that you have on the lathe isn't one of those wet pieces, but I suppose that it is still OK to have a cold one at the end of the day.

Bill

[Reed Gray]

I don't worry about it. I do wipe off the ways, and my bed isn't shiny silver any more. It is almost black, but no pitting that I can see or feel.
robo hippy

[Glenn Hodges]

Try some Johnson's Wax on the ways.

[Joash Boyton]

I turn huge amounts of green timber...sopping wet timber...never had any rust at all.....no need to worry IMO

[Andrew Harkin]

I wax my ways with either parrafin or minwax paste wax, and as long as I sweep the big shavings off the ways, I don't usually have any trouble. When I forget, or just haven't waxed it for a while, I do get some real light surface rust the next day. Then I just spray it down with wd40 and use fine steel wool to clean it up before another fresh waxing.

[Richard Madison]

Dick,
Before you start turning, spray the ways with Boeshield T9 and cover exposed areas with plastic. After turning, do one of the clean-up procedures already posted. This based upon experience with very corrosive wet oak. Despite precautions, some will leak through around the banjo and elsewhere.

[Gary DeWitt]

My lathe (General) came with instructions to sweep all chips away and oil the ways at the end of the day. The first time I turned wet wood on it and didn't do this, I had very light rust the next day. A bit of 600 grit and oil fixed it right up. Currently I'm using wd40, no rust and no "drift".

[George Tokarev]

Combination of the moisture itself and the acidity is what governs how much corrosion you get. Acid woods like oak, elm or cherry will corrode faster than bland stuff like maple or bass.

The methods mentioned all point toward making or keeping dry. I'm a wipe and WD40 type, never wax, but all work.

What you really want to watch out for is the shaving you left on the table of the bandsaw, or the sawdust on the guide adjustment below the table. Then there's the tablesaw, assuming yours isn't cluttered to hide most of the top. A shaving will find its way to iron as if magnetic, and hidden from view, make an ugly mess.

Even the relatively benign woods can be fun when summer cut. Sap sticks to everything it touches. Don't even think of turning summer cut spruce or tamarack.

[Gary DeWitt]

OK, now that we're off into sap, another question comes to mind. Some woods, wet olive in particular but probably others I haven't turned yet seem to really leave a lot of residue on my tools while turning, which gets in the way of honing. I've tried mineral spirits or water to get it off to no avail, and usually wind up using laquer thinner or other higher solvent.
What do you use?

[Mark Pruitt]

OK, now that we're off into sap, another question comes to mind. Some woods, wet olive in particular but probably others I haven't turned yet seem to really leave a lot of residue on my tools while turning, which gets in the way of honing. I've tried mineral spirits or water to get it off to no avail, and usually wind up using laquer thinner or other higher solvent.
What do you use?

Gary, I use this and it works beautifully. I'll usually spray some into a cut-off medicine bottle and dip the tool tip into it for about 10-15 seconds. Comes clean with one wipe of a paper towel and I'm back in business.

Another trick is to keep an old toothbrush handy and scrub the tool every once in a while to slow the buildup, but even then I eventually have to use the cleaning spray.