rust prevention

[wallace]

Andy have you thought about heating the machines themselves. That is what Bob9fingers does using some electrickery stuff he did a write up some where.

Here it is
post160287.html?hilit=%20condensation#p160287

 

[Farmer Giles]

Very interesting Wallace, direct rather than indirect heating. Definitely worth consideration, my Colchester lathe was soaking with condensation yesterday. I'll think on this

Cheers
Andy

 

[moosepig]

Rather than using barrier methods on every tool and hoping that the water doesn't get through, how about not allowing the condensation to form in the first place? Insulate the garage and keep its temperature above the dew point. Water vapour will then not condense out of the air and rust should not form overnight if at all.

 

[Farmer Giles]

Rather than using barrier methods on every tool and hoping that the water doesn't get through, how about not allowing the condensation to form in the first place? Insulate the garage and keep its temperature above the dew point. Water vapour will then not condense out of the air and rust should not form overnight if at all.

In my case cost and technology. I'm away for a few days a weeks so need something cost effective to heat the workshop reliably and it is 20m x 6m. It has no gas supply, it is insulated though, 50mm kingspan metalclad panels throughout. Gas or oil heaters with open flames create moisture as a byproduct. I have been looking at 12kw pellet stoves, you can get them with 25kg hoppers, thermostats and timers. On a low setting you get about 35 hours of heat from one load. So it I set the timer to come on for a few hours at night then it may do the job. I don't want a water based heat technology, i.e a boiler, something else to freeze and leak.

I think a combination of heat, insulation, removing sources of moisture, and the relevant coatings will be my solution. 12kw pellet stove are around 1200 to 1400 quid new but second hand more like 500 quid so I'm looking and bidding frequently.

 

[Jacob]

Rather than using barrier methods on every tool and hoping that the water doesn't get through, how about not allowing the condensation to form in the first place? Insulate the garage and keep its temperature above the dew point. Water vapour will then not condense out of the air and rust should not form overnight if at all.

Or consider window design - single glazed windows designed with water run-off work as dehumidifiers. It's a common solution but not always obvious feature of trad design. In larger old buildings it may be built in more obviously - with water channels and drain pipes.
If security is an issue thin steel in place of glass.
South facing also gives solar gain which reduces humidity, at night when cold works as dehumidifier. Win win!
PS plus ventilation of course.

 

[Farmer Giles]

Unfortunately, there are no windows in the workshop

 

[Jacob]

Unfortunately, there are no windows in the workshop

Fit a window? Cheaper than a de-humidifer and has zero running costs.

 

[Beau]

Dehumidifiers work very well if you restrict air changes. Had to build a 26' boat in an old cow shed which had no insulation and open to the elements at one end. We built a polythene tent inside it and we were able to keep the wood below 10% moisture with just a dehumidifier on Dartmoor!

Farmer Giles can you seal up up your tin shed with some cans of PU foam? If you have a tin roof some polythene suspended just below it helps avoid condensation as well.

 

[Farmer Giles]

I have tried a dehumidifier, it did lower the moisture level a little but it was on 24 x 7. It didn't cure the problem, probably needed a bigger beast. There is no condensation on the tin roof and sides, it is all kingspan 50mm insulated steel panels. There is very little leakage, however when I open a door to go in the air changes, and being a large space it contains a lot of water. It isn't hermetically sealed but there are no obvious gaps. I may sound very negative to some of the suggestions but this because I have already tried them. Heating is the only option left to try, I like the idea of heating machines directly, only problem is I have quite a few and some are rather large. Food for thought, up in the Pennines the moisture issues are more extreme. One other approach I toyed with was boarding off half the workshop and putting my often used machines and tools in it so heating/dehumidification would be less challenging, I'm still considering doing that.

 

[Beau]

I have tried a dehumidifier, it did lower the moisture level a little but it was on 24 x 7. It didn't cure the problem, probably needed a bigger beast. There is no condensation on the tin roof and sides, it is all kingspan 50mm insulated steel panels. There is very little leakage, however when I open a door to go in the air changes, and being a large space it contains a lot of water.

I dont think the size of space makes any difference if it is well sealed. Yes moisture gets in when the doors are opened but thats the same whatever the size of space. Suspect it is air leaking in but not suggesting it's an easy fix though. Good luck and the heating of the machines might be an easy solution if you cant lower the moisture in the space.

 

[MattRoberts]

Here's an interesting idea... No idea if it works

https://www.familyhandyman.com/tools/to ... m-facebook

 

[Farmer Giles]

I said I would conduct a trial on some rust prevention products, so here goes. Here's the short list of products to test.

I polished up an old cast iron surface plate I recovered from scrap a few years ago, it has a few bits of pitting but good enough for my needs, but a bit of light rust won't harm it. Once polished up I gave it a wipe with panel wipe degreaser and then with acetone. Sectioned it off with masking tape then applied each product thinly and evenly with a clean bit of blue roll. The top middle section has no product to show what happens without rust prevention. If this rusts too badly I will cover it, I don't mind a bit of light powder rust.

I've placed it in the workshop, lets see what happens

Cheers
Andy

 

[MattRoberts]

Nice one, looking forward to seeing the results. No poly though?

 

[Farmer Giles]

Nice one, looking forward to seeing the results. No poly though?

I had to draw a line somewhere, I would lump poly with coatings such as BLO so I decided to just stick to oils and waxes.

 

[4ndy]

Looking forward to seeing the results of this. I've heavily relied on ACF-50 in the past to stop motorbikes and boats from dissolving, and it worked remarkably well, even in the saltiest of winters.

I think you might struggle though as any of these products require direct application which is fine for surfaces but near impossible for the deep internals where condensation can still easily accumulate. Your idea of creating a small space that can be more easily heater/dehumidified may be the way forward for ultimate longevity.

I'm also imagining large swing open access doors if so, any chance you could put in a smaller person-only door to reduce the air changes as you enter and leave?

 

[ED65]

I've been conducting an informal comparison ongoing for a couple of years now as I've restored purchases from car boots by deliberately treating this and that differently to my normal route of rubbing in paste wax. The comparison products in my case being an oil/wax blend (aged walnut oil and paraffin wax), liquid paraffin, and petroleum jelly (Vaseline specifically but brand is unlikely to matter).

All are applied about the same way, which involves scrubbing or wiping it on and then wiping the surface dry afterwards so there's no obvious film, which many commercial rust-inhibitors actually rely on.

And the surprise early results are in: no clear winner.

But no losers either, since there's no rusting developing on anything, which frankly surprised the hell out of me. I have found one or two localised rust spots but I take that to be holidays in the coating rather than a failure of the material as with stuff that has pitting or any pronounced texture it's easy to miss a spot.

 

[Farmer Giles]

Looking forward to seeing the results of this. I've heavily relied on ACF-50 in the past to stop motorbikes and boats from dissolving, and it worked remarkably well, even in the saltiest of winters.

I think you might struggle though as any of these products require direct application which is fine for surfaces but near impossible for the deep internals where condensation can still easily accumulate. Your idea of creating a small space that can be more easily heater/dehumidified may be the way forward for ultimate longevity.

I'm also imagining large swing open access doors if so, any chance you could put in a smaller person-only door to reduce the air changes as you enter and leave?

I've bitten the bullet and I'm going to constantly heat the workshop. This is not a rehearsal, I don't believe in an after life and there's no pockets in a shroud so apart form stopping rust, the workshop will be a much more pleasant and productive place to work.

The idea will be background heat only unless I'm working in it then I may turn the heat up a couple of degrees. I will work out the best temp to minimise costs and avoid condensation, probably means some better humidity monitoring than I have presently, I do have one of these that I can wire up to my raspberry pi that runs my house heating. It's a onewire temperature and humidity sensor. I won't ramp the heating much even when I'm in it, just so it's pleasant to work without turning blue.

I use this bit of kit to control my house temperature, I can add the barn to it. The bottom bit is an IP relay, the left hand side is a onewire bus where all the sensors land and the bit middle top is the raspberry pi. Each sensor is paired to a relay that operates the solenoid on an underfloor heating zone. I have a spare relay board, it will be relatively simple to turn on and off the water via valves to the fan coil units in the barn at a specific temperature.

The walls and roof are 50mm insulated panels already, I will be insulating the floor underneath next year with spray on foam to cover the Kinkspan multideck. It means I have to take down the lighting in the barn but worth it as I get condensation dripping of that too and it is very well ventilated.

I will still need decent products to stop rust in unheated areas of the barn etc. so not a wasted effort.

 

[Farmer Giles]

Here's an interim report

Not much happened for the first few weeks when the surface plate was on a wooden bench. I thought this may be because it is small enough to keep pace with the ambient temperature so less condensation, so I placed it on top of the lathe bed and this is the result.

I took pictures with and without flash as it isn't easy to pick up all the rust.

Without flash

With flash

Conclusions so far,

• Only WD40 and AC50 show no signs of rust yet - the WD40 really surprised me.
  Camellia oil is next to useless at rust prevention
  Gibbs shows some rust, not as bad as Camellia oil but worse than I expected
  Liberon lubricating wax has a little rust showing through

Cheers
Andy

 

[Jacob]

..]Only WD40 and AC50 show no signs of rust yet - the WD40 really surprised me....

Shouldn't be a surprise - WD 40 actually is rocket science!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WD-40

 

[Sideways]

Not the cheapest solution but I bought a bunch of dewalt toughboxes DW100 and Dw300 to store power and hand tools while not in use in a damp garage overwinter. Also bought a couple of dozen 50g sachets of silica gel. This works well as the toughboxes are airtight. Exposed machinery is another story so a couple of thermostat controlled tubular greenhouse heaters got bought in a hurry and they plus the machines wrapped in bubble pack after I found condensation running off the machines this December.