Cast Iron Wax

[Tarhead]

My formula has worked well for years in a humid enviornment at cost of ~$.85 for 12oz.
Go to your grocery store and look in the section where they sell canning/freezing supplies. Buy a pound box of Gulfwax (~$3.00). Grate 1/2 of one of the 4 blocks with a cheese grater onto a paper towel and dump this into a 12oz spray bottle (I've used an old window cleaner bottle for a while). Fill the bottle with mineral spirits. Keep at a temperature of >50 degrees for a few hours. Before you shut down your shop for the night, shake well and spray your cast iron surfaces with a generous coating . The next morning take a paper towel and rub down the surfaces well.
I do this every month and have no speck of rust anywhere on my cast iron surfaces.

[jarhead]

Renaissance is expensive and comes in small quantity can. But a very little goes a very long way. You wipe it on and don't waste time wiping it off as it will harden quickly. Very quickly.. and once hard it's the hardest coating wax I have seen on the market.

I bought a can a while back and still have not used it. I didn't know that you let it dry w/o wiping it off.

[ssmith1627]

Some of these things are so simple but when you don't know, you don't know. I don't have anyone teaching me any of this -- just fumbling through it, watching TV shows and reading the net / magazines. And of course talking to you guys here when I get stuck.

I've tried the paste wax and really put a lot on. Just was never sure if that was enough or too much, how long to wait after applying it before I rubbed the top down with a cloth, etc. Or even to know if I was rubbing too much of it off afterwards. That stuff can be hard to polish up once you let it sit for a while -- takes some elbow grease.

Those simple techniques -- very hard to learn on your own. Now I'm trying hand cut dovetails the same way. Whew, what an experience.

Steve

[BrazosJake]

My shop isn't climate controlled either to keep the humidity down -- and it's bad here in Tennessee. It's a daily frustration because I can SWEAT with the best of em. I can hardly make a cut on the saw without dripping on the top or on the tube that the fence locks to. If I don't notice it and wipe it up right away, it's a new rust spot. I even tried wearing a headband one day to stop the dripping but got quite a few laughs from my wife.

Steve

Ditto that here, Steve. We had an incredibly wet spring/summer here in North TX, and while it wasn't as hot as a normal TX summer, the humidity was brutal. About 10-minutes in the shop and I'm dripping.

I use Minwax.

I think the original poster commented on using WD-40 to clean the grease off of his cast-iron top. I see frequent references to people using WD-40 for this same purpose and for the life of me can't understand why anyone uses a film-forming lubricant as a degreaser. WD-40 is a pretty good rust inhibitor, I used to use it on steel bullet molds, which are very prone to rust. But the film residue that makes it a good rust inhibitor had to be cleaned off with alcohol before using the molds. I sure wouldn't want a nice piece of hardwood getting saturated the stuff. Use mineral spirits, acetone, or DNA for degreasing, and silicone-free wax as a rust inihibitor on WW tools.

[BrazosJake]

Anybody on best way to get the rust stains off?

Mineral spirits and steel wool, naval jelly for the tough stuff.

[ssmith1627]

I've tried the steel wool as well as another neat idea I read about somewhere -- the green scrub pad type things you use in the kitchen will "stick" to your random orbit sander. Have done that a couple of times now with decent results.

But do any of these methods get everything off ? I get the surface rust off but the "blemish" is still there underneath it. It's like you can't "rub" that away. Are you just stuck with that ? It doesn't matter, don't worry about it ? Or does something take that off too ?

Steve

[MikeMcCoy]

Those simple techniques -- very hard to learn on your own. Now I'm trying hand cut dovetails the same way. Whew, what an experience.

Steve

Steve -- there are some good write ups that might help you with your dovetails:

http://www.taunton.com/finewoodworki...oodWorking.com

I've used WD40 as the cleaner, followed by mineral spirits and then was. Surprisingly, wax alone has kept down the rust since moving back to S.C. from Florida.

[LarryG]

Johnson's Paste Wax is the same way. I put it on and wipe it off. Don't let it dry.

QFT, and bump.

[cabinetman]

QFT, and bump.

My response in this thread.
.

[phi1l]

JPW has a mixture of paraffin wax & canauba wax.

Renaissance Wax is microcrystalline wax which is the hardest & therefore best.

Carnauba wax is the hardest natural wax, but it contains compounds that can degrade to acids over time.

I don't think you really want to blue your saw top. The blue color comes from the hard to produce Fe2O2 iron oxide. The best way to blue metal is to maintain it in an oxidising environment at a very narrow temp. range. There are "Cold bluing" Kits, but from the reviews I have seen on those, they are generally unsatisfactory. Not only that, but unlike aluminum oxide, the blue oxide is not a durable finish.

[dbhost]

Mineral spirits and steel wool, naval jelly for the tough stuff.

Naval Jelly leaves a really bad haze...

I have had excellent results with HF foam sanding blocks (the fine ones), a few swipes and any surface rust is GONE!

[Carlos]

For the last couple years I've been using Bostik TopCote instead of any waxes. I'm absolutely thrilled with the results, plus it's so easy to use and to re-apply any time. Because of that I'm more likely to regularly polish the tools instead of making an ordeal of it once a year. I've found that their ToolCote product is good on cutting surfaces such as drills.

[radhak]

Naval Jelly leaves a really bad haze...

I have had excellent results with HF foam sanding blocks (the fine ones), a few swipes and any surface rust is GONE!

I have done that in the past, but with trepidation : I felt I was sanding the surface metal, and I did it regularly, years down the line I might end up with a non-flat surface .

And yes, I do second a question above : do you guys see the ghost of the rust marks even after the rust is all gone? Any way to clean that up?

[phi1l]

do you guys see the ghost of the rust marks even after the rust is all gone? Any way to clean that up?

I'm afraid the only way to get rid of the "ghost" is a more liberal use of the sanding pad. The problem is that the rust molecules take up more space than the iron atoms that they replace. As a result the iron matrix gets expanded, essentially roughening the surface. Whether you use reducing chemicals or elbow grease to remove the rust, the rough surface remains, buffing is the only way to approximate the original.

[Carlos]

I had great and fairly easy results using 3M pads on my air grinder. There is still some visual dark spots, but nothing you can feel, so that's all that matters. With air power there was no elbow grease needed, just a little time.