I work for a packaging company in Sydney called UBEECO we distribute Rust Preventative Solutions Australia wide.

We recently ran some simple tests on a couple of saw blades. We needed rusty blades for disaply at our trade show so we half covered 1 with our VCI and the other one half covered in barrier foil. We popped them outside in the eliments for 2 weeks. It rained a few times so it was a great time to experiment.

Personally for me, as marketing, not sales, I was blown away at how quick the blades rusted (everyone in the sales dept seemed to know what results to expect from my little test).

When i removed the covered sections of the blade some water had leaked into the covered side, so it had some marks from the dirty rusty water getting in, but had we have given it an airtight seal (which is what you need to do) it would have been un marked.

Depending on the level of rust prevention needed and what its going to be exposed to, you can even get away with silica gel / desiccant bags as a solution to avoiding rust.

You can check out our blog http://ubeecoblog.com/ or website http://www.ubeeco.com.au/RUST_PREVENTION.htm for helpful information.

Hope this helps someone, and that it was okay to pop our company links on...