A little water helps the rust go away

[bobgroh]

While digging into my 'new' 1994 SS Mark V 510's jointer (the primary reason I bought the setup), I have been concentrating on getting rid of the light coat of rust that covered the jointer bed. Didn't have any Naval Jelly and I was impatient to get going so I used mechanical abrasion - i.e. #1 steel wool then 400 wet-and-dry carbide sandpaper.

I noticed that having a bit of water on the surface seemed to considerably help the cleaning process. Spit works good too!

Basically I applied a little water on the surface and then aggressively used the steel wool on the rusty surface. I rapidly got a red slurry which really seemed to help the removal process. After a couple of minutes, I would rub off the slurry mixture and see how things were going. I think it worked very well.

It also worked with sandpaper - doing the sanding wet seemed to be more effective in cutting into the rust/et al on the bed.

Of course, when all done, I applied a liberal wax job. Looks great. I'll post some pictures later.

[beeg]

GOOD ya got it cleaned up. I think you should rewax in a couple days. Just like you would do a new one. Because with what you had to do, you took off a small layer of metal.

[james.miller]

The Wet or Dry black sandpaper works well used wet and lasts longer because the water takes the sanding dust away. They sell a hard rubber sanding block to use it with for auto body sanding.