rust on way tubes and other parts

[jsburger]

JPG would use Mineral spirits for cleaning, but not while abrading.

The Goldies (with 1 3/4" bench tubes) had painted bench tubes also.

Realize the steel in the bench tubes was also different from the way tubes so they have a different appearance when 'polished'.

Indented letters can be filled with paint by entire covering with paint then scraping(peeling) the excess off with a razor blade after it has set slightly. Then careful dabbing/wiping with a barely dampened(with thinner) cloth to clean up the desired unpainted area. Takes a bit of wishful thinking but will be mostly successful. The paint in the indentation will tend to pull out as it is 'peeled'. Careful infill with a toothpick can repair that.

I suggest penetrol to prevent rust while storing and awaiting reassembly and those parts not painted or 'polished'.

I think that is what I said. I never use it for abrading, just cleaning after the fact to apply JPW.

I have always assumed your procedure for indented letters is the way to do it but, I have never tried it.

[JPG]

JPG would use Mineral spirits for cleaning, but not while abrading.

The Goldies (with 1 3/4" bench tubes) had painted bench tubes also.

Realize the steel in the bench tubes was also different from the way tubes so they have a different appearance when 'polished'.

Indented letters can be filled with paint by entire covering with paint then scraping(peeling) the excess off with a razor blade after it has set slightly. Then careful dabbing/wiping with a barely dampened(with thinner) cloth to clean up the desired unpainted area. Takes a bit of wishful thinking but will be mostly successful. The paint in the indentation will tend to pull out as it is 'peeled'. Careful infill with a toothpick can repair that.

I suggest penetrol to prevent rust while storing and awaiting reassembly and those parts not painted or 'polished'.

I think that is what I said. I never use it for abrading, just cleaning after the fact to apply JPW.

I have always assumed your procedure for indented letters is the way to do it but, I have never tried it.

True, you did not say otherwise, - But Phil72 did mention mineral spirits to lubricate the abrading.

[ERLover]

Why not MS for abrading with wet and dry? I have done it, but still always learning.

[JPG]

Why not MS for abrading with wet and dry? I have done it, but still always learning.

More to the point, why other than to create a method for the waste dust to depart. Makes a horrendous mess.

i.e. dry works fer me. But then I not be seeking a finish like a hydraulic ram.

[BuckeyeDennis]

John, my CL 10ER came with a large vintage Gerstner toolbox full of Starrett instruments. They had been neglected for a lot of years. Most all were rusty, and some had significant pitting. The first few I cleaned with Evaporust, polished, and then treated with WD40 only. These started getting rusty again after a month or two, even in a climate-controller basement.

I think I first heard about Penetrol in one of reible's threads, and decided to give it a try. It solved the rust problem, but also glued nuts to bolts, etc., when it dried. Not good. That's when I learned to clean off the excess. I used WD40, but mineral spirits should work just as well or better. I've had almost zero problems with rust re-forming. And I've had no problem with JPW sticking after cleaning with WD40.

Would JPW alone work as well as Penetrol at preventing rust? My educated guess is "it depends". On my new machines that have never rusted, I use JPW alone, and never have a rust problem. Pitted metal is a different story -- it's much more prone to re-rusting. I know that Penetrol works. It penetrates into the pores, dries solid, and seems to form an airtight seal. The goal of my process is to leave Penetrol in the pits, but clean it off of the surface of the metal.

I can't say that I've ever tried JPW by itself on pitted metal.

[BuckeyeDennis]

Is this the penetrol?: http://www.homedepot.com/p/Flood-Penetr ... /100130893

Since I've already removed most of the rust, I think that additional rust removal soakings will not be necessary (I will probably try some of these out if I need to do any sort of rust removal on one of the Shopsmiths again (probably sometime soon ), but I will definitely try sanding the small remaining amounts of rust off. Would this diameter change affect the tubes or caster rods at all? I was also thinking of doing the tube procedure with the caster rods just to get the very small amount of remaining rust off them.<- These I could also put in the drill in horizontal mode as well.
I was not going to repaint them, as they were not painted before, and I like the metal look of the tubes. I don't really have a choice for where to store my machine, but my working one has been doing fine in my garage for a while now, so I hope that is good enough.

Here is plan using your input (let me know if this sounds good):
1. Use a freeze plug to mount a tube in the drill chuck in horizontal boring mode (I realized I would not be able to mount the plug on the lathe, having only a live center not a plate so I will try to add a bolt in the plugs). Sand, starting at 220 grit, go up to 400, using mineral spirits to lubricate.
2. I will then keep the tube in the chuck and buff with the wheel brush mounted in a hand drill (this one?: http://www.acehardware.com/product/inde ... d=31821656).
3. Remove the tube. I can now put another one on.
4. Apply penetrol to the cleaned up tube, let it sit for 24-36-ish hours, and wipe down with WD-40.
5. After an hour or so, apply paste wax and let it sit for a little.
6. (Repeat for all tubes)

My biggest questions here are:

1. Can I do this with the caster rods as well?
2. Will the diameter change affect the caster rods or the tubes significantly (tubes slightly, caster rods a little loose...)?
3. Will my proposed procedure work well?
4. Will my proposed procedure take too long as far as tubes sitting out once they are treated? I will, once it is all done and prior to assembly, put another coat of wax on, probably.
5. Is there any way to repaint the little red numbers on the tilt control, miter gauge, and fence, the letters and words on the speed control, or the "waffle" patterned red area on the Shopsmith logo on the front and back of the headstock without very tediously masking all around the little letters?

Thanks to all for your input.

Phil, you ID'd the Penetrol correctly.

The brush from Ace is indeed a Nyalox wheel brush, but the gray ones are the coarse grade. Much too aggressive for polishing. You want the blue ones (fine) for that.

The Nyalox brushes are great for cleaning and polishing irregular surfaces. But if you're going to turn/sand your tubes, you can put the finish you want on those with fine sandpaper. Unless you want a mirror finish, that is, in which case you'd do the final finishing with polishing compounds.

[ERLover]

John, my CL 10ER came with a large vintage Gerstner toolbox full of Starrett instruments. They had been neglected for a lot of years. Most all were rusty, and some had significant pitting. The first few I cleaned with Evaporust, polished, and then treated with WD40 only. These started getting rusty again after a month or two, even in a climate-controller basement.

I think I first heard about Penetrol in one of reible's threads, and decided to give it a try. It solved the rust problem, but also glued nuts to bolts, etc., when it dried. Not good. That's when I learned to clean off the excess. I used WD40, but mineral spirits should work just as well or better. I've had almost zero problems with rust re-forming. And I've had no problem with JPW sticking after cleaning with WD40.

Would JPW alone work as well as Penetrol at preventing rust? My educated guess is "it depends". On my new machines that have never rusted, I use JPW alone, and never have a rust problem. Pitted metal is a different story -- it's much more prone to re-rusting. I know that Penetrol works. It penetrates into the pores, dries solid, and seems to form an airtight seal. The goal of my process is to leave Penetrol in the pits, but clean it off of the surface of the metal.

I can't say that I've ever tried JPW by itself on pitted metal.

BD turned me on to Pentrol, I did a set of ER tubes this fall/winter, then did the Pentrol thing, never buffed it off, now this week and to night putting the Er together, everything is sliding nice on the Pentrol coated tubes that where never buffed

[BuckeyeDennis]

Why not MS for abrading with wet and dry? I have done it, but still always learning.

More to the point, why other than to create a method for the waste dust to depart. Makes a horrendous mess.

i.e. dry works fer me. But then I not be seeking a finish like a hydraulic ram.

I worked in a body shop for a couple of summers while in college. When sanding paint, body men pretty much always use wet-or-dry sandpaper, wet with water. It cuts a lot faster, and doesn't load up nearly as quickly. This, I can vouch for personally.

I never thought about using it wet for woodworking projects until I got Bob Flexner's book, Understanding Wood Finishing. In the chapter on leveling and finishing the (already dry) finish, he states:

"Lubricant is used with sandpaper and steel wool to reduce corning and to float away grit and abraded material, maintaining the abrasive's effectiveness. The lubricant also holds down dust and steel-wool particles so you don't breath them, and some lubricants reduce the size of scratches. There are four types of lubricants for rubbing finishes: mineral spirits or naptha, liquid or paste wax, oil, water or soapy water."

After reading that, I decided to try some mineral spirits for lubricant when I was finishing that buckeye-burl ice cream scoop handle. It delivered all of the benefits that Flexner promised, and made for a very nice sanding experience. Unfortunately, it also deposited sanding sludges into the burl voids that I hadn't completely filled, necessitating meticulous removal with a dental pick! Bad tradeoff in that instance, but I'll definitely use it again when sanding pit-free surfaces.

And I am very curious about using JPW as a sanding lubricant. Sounds like a SNL parody of an old Ronco commercial ... "Sand and polish in just one easy step!".

[everettdavis]

Phil,

jsburger has successfully used the sanding method to resurface his and has responded in this thread with great detail on how he does what he does.

JPG uses 2" PVC Pipe to house the tubes and de-rusts them with Evaporust. I have one 10ER in the shop right now that needs me to fabricate a frame and sheathing to hold the whole thing in an electrolysis tank to de-rust a seized unit that came out of Houston earlier this year. It is at the far end in the corner of the photo.

I actually employ both methods, starting with Evaporust, then doing the light sanding and polishing.

I posted this http://www.shopsmith.com/ss_forum/viewt ... 33#p175733 about two years ago in a thread titled ' "How To" Guide To Recondition Your Bench and Way Tubes ' started by mickyd in early 2009. It has a good bit of information that covers a spectrum of the topics you sought answered.

I recently posted https://www.shopsmith.com/ss_forum/view ... 63#p220163 which shows my set-up using 2" PVC Pipe and Evaporust which is the method JPG first pointed me to, illustrating how I can now process both way tubes and both bench tubes at the same time.

That is important now for me as I have nine Mark 5 / Mark V units, and four 10ER systems in queue right now, so I have 40 tubes to process in coming months. Well, thirty eight not counting the one that has to go to go the electrolysis route just to get things apart. I as I said in the other post, I salvaged 2 x 6 portions of a 10ER stand that had rotted on one end. They came from that machine which you can see at the far end in the attached photo.

The photo shows where I will be storing those way and bench tubes between wall studs after tear-down and after they are restored as I work to perform other services, such as media blasting as I prepare to paint. That’s a whole new project on its own as I restore and upgrade my Econoline blast cabinet, which, like other things are being shifted around.

The point is, what you do, or what you may have to do depends entirely on the conditions of the systems you are working on.

Everett

Storage for Tubes in Queue.JPG (95.4 KiB) Viewed 9425 times

Rusted 10ER out of Houston.JPG (87.62 KiB) Viewed 9422 times

[rpd]

I have one 10ER in the shop right now that needs me to fabricate a frame and sheathing to hold the whole thing in an electrolysis tank to de-rust a seized unit that came out of Houston earlier this year. It is at the far end in the corner of the photo.

Everett

If I am understanding you correctly, you are going to use electrolysis to facilitate disassembly of the whole unit.
Neither of my units were that badly rusted but on one the table rods/tubes were frozen in the carriage. I was able to free them by putting some Evaporust at the juncture so that it wicked down into the joints, it dissolved the rust and freed the rods/tubes in fairly short order.

Could be worth a try to get that unit down into more manageable sized pieces.

I really like Evaporust, but it is quite expensive here so I haven't used it as a bath, but rather for the bench tubes I used it with Scotch Brite scrubbers to "wet sand" them. This removed the surface rust and neutralized any that was down in pits. It left a matte finish but a bit more work with fine sandpaper fixed that. Having cleaned up two 10ERs and some other stuff I still have about a cup left of my first quart bottle.