I am having a dedicated shop built and added onto my garage. I built a basic plywood “fence” around my bigger tools in the garage while the construction was underway to keep the tools safe(r).
Upon my progress visit to day and just checking in to make sure nothing walked away, I noticed a full coating of rust on my cabinet saw and bandsaw cast iron tops. Not super concerned as that should clean up quite easily; it was after further inspection of noticing rust on my AVID linear rails (light amount of rust on the rails least traveled) and all gear racks.
I should be able to re-locate everything into the new space in the next week or two, but was curious what’s the best course of action (products & process) to clean up the rails / gear racks?
I use Boeshield Rust Free to remove rust, then Boeshield T-9 to protect the metal. I’ve used it on my table saw, band saw etc for years, so it made sense to apply it to the CNC.
I learn this one from the old timers on cast iron mills and large CNC machines.
Any bare and exposed metal, once a month wipe it down with G96. It takes the rust off and protects the bare metal.
Also, get a good dehumidifier and run the tube out the door or in a drain so it doesn’t fill up and stop working. Keep the relative humidity around 50% the best you can.
Also, make sure your AC unit isn’t pointed at the machine. The cold air will cause condensate to form on the exposed bare metal.
True story! I was welding up a tube 4130 fuselage for a Sonerai IILS, a rag and tube low wing with aluminum wings. Fast little thing. Makes the VW engine powering it shine.
Anyways, I had spots of rust just randomly appearing on the frame. It was driving me nuts! I was wiping it down with linseed oil after each weld and it was still forming a reddish “rash” in the weirdest places.
I sat their one day and decided I was just going to watch it rust and figure it out. Well, about 20 minutes in the AC unit kicked on. The oscillating kind, blows back and forth. As I watched it doing its thing I realized that as I was moving the fuselage around to weld on it I was exposing different parts of it to that cool air stream and the condensation would form and cause little patches of rust to appear.
The G96 is great stuff. My little X3 conversion bathes in it once a week whether it needs it or not. Never has had a spot of rust on it. I have a Fog Buster on it so it is exposed to fluids all the time and its better to be safe than sorry.
PS. You turn OFF the AC when you weld which is why I never noticed it. Some context there
