Tube Cleaning Process

[tred1956]

Hi,
Just got my Shopsmith unit from my Dad. He bought it new in the late 70's early 80's. Anyway he turned 84 this year and has not used it in severeal years. It has been stored in an un heated shop and unfortunately has a good amount of rust on the tubes. My question is what is the BEST way to clean and polish the tubes before using wax? Should I use steel wool? If so what grade? Polishing compound? Sand paper?

Thanks for all the advice. Won a set of tubes on E B A Y last night. EVERBODY neeeds a spare set:D

Now for my next ????? The saw blade arbor is also rusted on the spindle shaft. Removed the blade so I don't get CUT. Removed the set screw and have it filled with Kroil. Any other suggestions? Or just keep it full of Kroil and wait.

Thanks in advance
Doug

[dlbristol]

Welcome to the forum! You have just asked one of the "magic questions" on the site. I can't really answer the question, but trust me you are about to get a lot of info. When this is over, you will know a lot more about potatoes, soda, electrolisis, oxidation and who know what all. Enjoy.

[tred1956]

Dave,
Thanks for the welcome . I look forward to differing opinions:D

Doug

[beeg]

WELCOME to the forum Tred1956.
Do ya have a pic ya can post so that we know what amount of rust your talking about? It may take 400grit wet/dry paper and wd40 or ya might be better off starting with electrolysis.

[camerio]

You could update your profile with your location, maybe there is a Shopsmith owner not far away from you.
Welcome to the best forum, you will enjoy this friendly place.

[dgale]

I was in the exact same situation a while back and discovered a set of way and bench tubes on E-Bay for $40 - they were in excellent condition and shipping was only $18...as much as I'm a fix it myself kinda guy, to be honest, for ~$60 I got a set of tubes in perfect condition and was able to install them myself in less than 30 minutes...job done. I don't know what level of rust you're dealing with and while it can almost always be removed and your tubes returned to a good functional condition, in my case it was just a question of how long that would have taken me and what my time was worth.

I saw this set of tubes that got listed on E-Bay a few days ago:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/SHOPSMITH-WAY-AND-BASE-TUBES-/271100604526?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3f1edaf06e

Starting price only $20 - shipping is $40, so more than I have bought several items from this particular seller before and found him top-notch in the E-Bay World and he has repeatedly only charged me the actual shipping costs, which have always been less than what's posted since we only live ~800 miles apart. Anyway, worth considering as an option if your rust problem has gotten pretty bad and you're facing a fair amount of work to get things back in working order.

[tred1956]

Thanks dgale. Have them on my watch list.
Doug

[LenInSebastopol]

Try the above, EvapoRust. Harbor Freight has it, about $20 USD.
Get a PVC pipe big enough to hold a tube, and get a cap for that pipe. Pour it in, put your tube in, wait 24 hours, take it out and viola!
Depending on the amount of rust you may use the same fluid again. Great stuff. OR you can use elbow grease, steel wool, WD 40 or some such. OR you can hook up a drill, put cut a plug for your tube hole, place plug into hole, place drill into plug so the whole thing turns and then steel wool it as it turns. Crazy set up, that one!
Glad you came to this forum, as all the answers are here and so many of them it takes awhile to hunt them down.
Good luck and keep us posted.

[JPG]

This is likely an interesting read on this subject.

http://www.shopsmith.net/forums/showthr ... =evaporust

[tred1956]

Thanks so much for all the input. Take back to the top with new question in original post.
thanks
Doug