I got a Lesson in Table Saw Rust Removal

[WilliamHodge]

Before I went into woodworking for a job, I had a garage shop in a neighborhood in suburban New Hampshire. The shop was attached to the house by a breeze way. I didn't heat the shop, and in the spring warm moist air would come in, and rust the table tops, innards, and everything in the shop. I would spay heavy oil on the machines and cover them with special blankets treated with rust preventative stuff. However, every spring, my prize Craftsman saw would have a coating of rust on the table.

On a Saturday morning in May, after it had warmed up, I would wheel the saw out into the driveway and go to work. The first step was to grind the rust off with a series of use 120 grit ROS pads mounted on the nose bearing of a chain saw. Being 2 cycle, the saw could tilt sideways to get parallel to the table surface. Next I would go with WD-40 and 220 grit paper on the ROS pad. The Scotch Brite pads on the ROS pad, then Scotchbrite pads of finer grade with a ROS. Finally, I would take paper towels and WD-40 and clean all the sandpaper grit and Scotch Brite pad particles and bar and chain oil off the saw table, sides, and insides.

As everyone knows, WD-40 will not prevent rust. You need wax for that, good wax, applied the right way. This was my favorite part.

I would get out my Sony Walkman and put in my Percy Sledge tape "When a Man Loves a Woman" on repeat. That one song went over and over on the tape, left over from my younger days. I would put the headphones on, crank it up, and sing along, really loudly, and wipe down that table with my wife's Brazilian Booty Wax (32 oz container).

I never thought much about what my neighbors thought about me out there in the driveway. They did think about me.

"Well, this man loves a woman
I gave you everything I had
Trying to hold on to your precious love
Baby, please don't treat me bad!"

The neighbors did indeed think about me. I don't know what they disliked more, me singing or using the chain saw, but they got together and bought me a dehumidifier, and set it up in my shop without even asking me.

It worked. The humidity stayed below 45, and the excess heat from the dehumidifier was just enough to keep the relative humidity a little lower. I aimed the warm air at the saw.

The neighbors taught me a lesson in machine care, more than machine maintenance.

William Hodge

[srv52761]

Dehumidification is an open secret that some don't embrace. Cheaper than A/C and usually more effective.

Dehumidifier won't help a lot when the temps get lower than 55 and not at all when temps get below 45.
And water vapor is always dangerous when there is a temp difference and high relative humidity, but you've already hit on the solution... additional heat.

A tip I got on this forum a number of years ago was a 100w light bulb inside my tablesaw. Not a lot of temp difference, but enough to keep water vapor at bay.

[stav]

So this is a how to post on getting a dehumidifier?

[Axl]

You used sandpaper?

[cputnam]

Another e\xample of the necessity to keep tools heated above the dew point.

[AHill]

When you keep the relative humidity below about 32% (can't remember the exact number, but it's in the 30's), you pretty much eliminate rust. We used to store lots of tanks, trucks, howitzers, and armored personnel carriers in Europe just in case the Russian hoard came across the Fulda gap. That was our secret. Dehumdify the building, and almost nothing else was required except to keep a trickle charge on the batteries. We once started up a tank that had been in continuous storage for 11 years, fueled it up, and drove it 50 miles to a training area. No problems. If you go too low in the RH, then you risk drying our rubber seals and tires cracking, etc.

[fredhargis]

Interesting, if I did that the neighbors would call the police and report public disturbance.

[rwe2156]

So did your neighbors do you favor or not?

[knotscott]

Post deleted by knotscott

[WilliamHodge]

All of the above people are pretty much ahead of where I was.

It was a situation of plugging the leak, instead of bailing faster.

Instead of using better and better wax on the table, keeping the water from rusting the table was a better idea.

The sand paper ground the table all out of flat,the chainsaw and my singing annoyed the neighbors, using up all the Brazilian Booty Wax led to a hairy situation. My wife suggested I give her more space, that did not include me.

Now, I have my own shop out in the woods, and I keep the humidity low. I listen to more appropriate music, white guys that can't sing, like The Grateful Dead. I still can't help but hum some Percy Sledge when I wax the rip saw, and think of my ex-wife going to pool parties with my ex-neighbors.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rq2P8pTrDvw