Setting up a new shop and rust....

[Maverick.uk]

Hi all,

I am new to this woodworking experience and am actually a mechanical engineer by trade but love working with wood. I yearned for this for quite some time and finally convinced the boss to allow me to build a workshop, convinced her it would get all the tools out of the house

Anyway its now built last year, quite a basic construction. Its 5m x 5M constructed with a concrete floor with vapour barrier inset pipes to run cables, i however did not go to putting down insulation. The rest of the construction is wooden stud with featheredge to the outside. The stud is infilled with insulation as wells as the roof. I have completely vapour barriered all the walls and the ceiling and then covered with 1/2" plasterboard.

Now, i seem to still get rust which i guess is to be expected in our moist environment. I was considering getting a dehumidifier to leave running. Is this a good idea?

I managed to source my first proper woodworking piece of kit about 2 years ago before building the workshop. This is a wadkin table saw however it is of the fixed variety and does not tilt, however it was free. My other piece of kit is a dewalt compound sliding mitre saw which i love. I have owned this since new but am loathed to put it in the shop until i sort out the rust issue, i don't want the sliders going rusty.....

I notice in some of the posts i have read whilst searching that you can coat things with a wax, should i be doing this as well to all tools power and hand (chisels etc).

Anyway thanks to any assistance you can give to a new kid on the block who is used to dealing in metal and not wood. Cheers guys

Kevin

 

[PowerTool]

Hello,and welcome to the forum

Do you have any form of heating in your workshop? I try to keep mine at +5C minimum,and don't have any problems with rust.

Andrew

 

[Maverick.uk]

Hello,and welcome to the forum

Do you have any form of heating in your workshop? I try to keep mine at +5C minimum,and don't have any problems with rust.

Andrew

Hi Andrew

No, no heating at all. Its at the bottom of the garden 100ft from the house so any heating would have to be electric.

Cheers

Kevin

 

[MikeG.]

Hi all,
Now, I seem to still get rust which i guess is to be expected in our moist environment. I was considering getting a dehumidifier to leave running. Is this a good idea?
Kevin

Hi Kevin, and welcome aboard......

Dehumidifiers are my pet hate. They are a way of papering over the cracks, and should never be needed in a properly insulated and ventilated building.

So, why are your tools rusting?

My first suspision would fall on your concrete slab. How new is your workshop? How long has the slab been down.......and how long since you made the building water-tight? Think of all the gallons of water you used to make the concrete.......it has to go somewhere, and you have created a water-tight bubble around it to prevent it going anywhere. An easy way to tell if this is the source of your ttrouble is to place a piece of plastic on the concrete for a few days, weighted down at the edges. If when you remove it the plastic is damp and/ or the floor is darker than its surrounds, then this is the source of your moisture.

What have you done about ventilation and heating? You will need ventilation simply to move the moist air out of the workshop. Heating......one huge mistake that some people make is to put one of those portable gas heaters into their shed. They produce gallons of water vapour as a by-product of combustion, and so are totally inappropriate for a workshop.

My suggested solution would be firstly to smear oil onto all of your tools. Just an oily rag (any old oil will do) wiped over them every few weeks will protect them wonderfully. But then, you've got to get your ventilation sorted. I reckon that an inlet grill at low level in one wall, with a normal kitch-type extract fan at high level in the opposite wall connected to a humidistat should do the trick for you. You've spent many hundreds of pounds getting this far........another £50 or so should resolve your ventilation issues.

BTW, the DW compound sliding mitre saw has stainless steel sliding rails and so won't rust in any environment.

Hope this helps!

Mike

PS......I hope you built your stud walls on a brick plinth and not straight off the slab?

 

[johnjin]

Hi Kevin

In my opinion the best thing to protect cast iron tables such as your Wadkin is Liberon lubricating wax. It will keep the surface slippery and the rust at bay while not contaminating the wood. However for the hand tools I would recommend this stuff. It will protect anything for a minimum of two years and a quick wipe with a paraffin rag will remove it immediately.
Rocol Z30 Corrosion Protection

Hope this helps

John

 

[big soft moose]

Hello,and welcome to the forum

Do you have any form of heating in your workshop? I try to keep mine at +5C minimum,and don't have any problems with rust.

Andrew

Hi Andrew

No, no heating at all. Its at the bottom of the garden 100ft from the house so any heating would have to be electric.

Cheers

Kevin

log burner !

also burns all your off cuts etc

also get a night rated circuit put in and use a time switch to run a dehumidifier while power is cheap.

 

[Scott Horsburgh]

Hi Maverick,
I have problems with rust. My big machinery is housed in a rugged old shed out the back and it has openings everywhere. I put some Japanese Camilia oil on a rag and run it over the steel surfaces when I am finished and I now get no rust. The oil puts a thin protective film over the steel. I just give the machines a quick wipe down before I use them.

Scott

 

[Corset]

My new workshop is under my house in a cellar type layout/garage. Unfortunately without a major spend damp will be an ongoing issue. So I have fitted a dehumifier (rotary type) and coated everything with metal guard. I used a wax before which was good but needed topping up all the time. After the initial scare of rust I have had no further problems.
I store all my handtools in a plywood case with a low voltage bulb on which stops rust. This was a tip from from a fellow site member, Sgian Dubh I think.
owen

 

[woodbloke]

My 'shop is fully insulated with a suspended floor, so no concrete. I very rarely have any sort of problem with rusticles but I do run a dehumidifier off an electronic timer...it's surprising how often I have to empty the container in the summer (probably once every few days) Although Mike G is against them, it's one option that's worthy of consideration if you've got a bad problem...welcome to the forum btw - Rob

 

[Benchwayze]

Hi Maverick,

Welcome to the world of woodwork and the forum.

As you are an engineer, I am sure you will be able to devise some superb jigs, in metal, over time and put us to shame there!

I think you had stacks of useful advice on the damp/rust problem, but I can add one thing.

My shop has an up-and-over, metal door which faces due South.
Even in the coldest spells, the metal is never truly cold. So I imagine the door acts as some kind of 'solar-panel' or convector. Anyhow, it keeps my shop dry and I don't suffer from rust at all. I wanted to paint the door matt black, to enhance these 'heat collecting' property but SWIMBO's foot came down!

Maybe you have a south-facing aspect on one side of your shop, so you can use the metal sheet trick to collect whatever heat is in the atmosphere.


Good Luck and welcome again

 

[Martingchapman]

Kevin,
Welcome to the forum.

I have an all wooden workshop 6m x 2.5m, with a suspended wooden floor.

The walls and ceiling are insulated and covered with thin ply.

I have a small dehumidifier which I empty once a week and have never had any problems with rust at all.

Martin.

 

[MikeG.]

My shop has an up-and-over, metal door which faces due South.
Even in the coldest spells, the metal is never truly cold. So I imagine the door acts as some kind of 'solar-panel' or convector. Anyhow, it keeps my shop dry and I don't suffer from rust at all. I wanted to paint the door matt black, to enhance these 'heat collecting' property but SWIMBO's foot came down!

Maybe you have a south-facing aspect on one side of your shop, so you can use the metal sheet trick to collect whatever heat is in the atmosphere.

Even better would be a sheet of glass in front of a matt black background. This is known as a trombe wall (with an accute accent over the e), and well-sited could make an enormous difference to the warmth of any workshop.

You can do it a number of ways In all of them the glass must conceal a cavity sealed to the outside, but with air-flow top and bottom to the inside. The hot air rising out of the glazed space, which only need be an inch or two deep, will draw cold air in from the workshop at low level, which will warm up, rise...............etc. The wall behind the trombe wall should either be well insulated, or very heavy (concrete blocks, for instance). In our climate, I think well insulated might be best.

Pre-requisite for success is a south facing unshaded wall, and I reckon that most urban gardens ae going to struggle to allow those conditions.

The garage door idea is great when the sun is shining (particularly if you can paint it a dark colour), but unfortunately has no insulating qualities when it is not, so will leak heat from the workshop rapidly.

Mike

 

[CroppyBoy1798]

log burner !

also burns all your off cuts etc

also get a night rated circuit put in and use a time switch to run a dehumidifier while power is cheap.

+1 on that idea! My shop is as rough as they come! :lol: About 16x11ft, built about 30 years ago and made from 9" cavity blocks, a poured concrete floor and galvanised roof. As you can imagine it wasnt the nicest place to be working in during the winter and I also had rust problems, so I picked up an old stove and installed it! Some difference to the place immediately!

You can burn offcuts (free heat! 8) ), gives you a bit of warmth while working, brings some life to the place and you could pick up a bag of coal or something and use that on it to keep it ticking over during the night.

 

[Benchwayze]

My shop has an up-and-over, metal door which faces due South.
Even in the coldest spells, the metal is never truly cold. So I imagine the door acts as some kind of 'solar-panel' or convector. Anyhow, it keeps my shop dry and I don't suffer from rust at all. I wanted to paint the door matt black, to enhance these 'heat collecting' property but SWIMBO's foot came down!

Maybe you have a south-facing aspect on one side of your shop, so you can use the metal sheet trick to collect whatever heat is in the atmosphere.

The garage door idea is great when the sun is shining (particularly if you can paint it a dark colour), but unfortunately has no insulating qualities when it is not, so will leak heat from the workshop rapidly.

Mike

Well Mike, I looked into the trombe wall, but I mustn't be seen as being too green here I'm afraid, as our planning authority doesn't like large glass frontages on homes!

I am not a worker who likes too much heat in the shop to be frank. On all but the most freezing, howling days, I have the door open, so the insulation isn't a problem. I don't know if I just don't feel the cold as I age? I've heard that's true! Or maybe I just get stuck into some planing or hand-ripping.

Thanks for the info on the trombe-wall.

 

[MikeG.]

Or maybe I just get stuck into some planing or hand-ripping.
Thanls for the info on the trombe-wall.

John,

I'm with you!! When I built my own houses (I did it twice)........if it was cold on site I would find a hand sawing job and get stuck in. I wasn't cold for long!

Mike

 

[Maverick.uk]

Thanks guys for the multiple warm welcome.

To answer some of the questions and comments.

The slab has been down probably 3 years but was not covered over by the building till probably a year and half to three quarters ago. The floor was then allowed to dry (from rained on wet) double the recommended time for new concrete. It was then sealed and painted with epoxy floor paint.

Regarding heat and ventilation, hmm i guess thats none on both counts. I am at the moment not a regular woodworker and just starting out so to speak, so could not really justify heating the space when i am not in it. Ventilation this i am a little lost on, i understand that if i have moist air within the workshop then by getting air flow through i can potentially get the air moving to remove that, but what if we are in a very damp weather period, is not the new air you replace it with then laden with moisture? I could put an inlet grill in the door and probably a fan in one of the windows, i don't particularly want to start cutting holes in the walls. I would like to understand the answer to my question above first though about moisture laden air coming in the workshop from outside.

The workshop is watertight but does not have all the windows glazed yet. These are however double covered (sealed) inside and out with plastic.

Thanks Mike for the info on the sliders of the DW i did not know they are stainless. Are they ground and polished or chromed? If chromed then still have the possibility to rust :-( Logically they should be ground and polished stainless!

Yes, stud walls built on brick plinth which also contains the slab.

From the techniques for the big tools it seems a wax is the way to go and an oil for the smaller tools. My first project is due to be a couple of tool cabinet draw systems which i plan to line with VPI paper (we use it at work) and also throw in some silica bags (again free by product of some deliveries we receive), this hopefully will keep those smaller tools rust free. For the larger tools which is where i noticed it such as on the F clamp bars i guess some light oiling. I was always a bit dubious about this due to contact with any wood and oil staining it would give but the Liberon looks like it does not suffer this problem, again camellia oil also seems as though it fits in this category.

Looked at the rocol Z30, is this stuff you use on hand tools that you don't use all the time i.e. you have to wipe it all off before you use any tools near the wood?

I may consider still using a dehumidifier but i notice somebody wrote rotary type, is there different types and if so what should i look for? At the moment i was just looking for the amount it could extract within a given period.

Regards

Kev