Thread: Temporary anti-rust solutions?

[QUOTE=BobL;1812714]So your tool boxes/cupboards basically contain an camphor vapour atmosphere more than 100 times above the TVL?
Do you wear a gas mask when you open the tool boxes/cupboards?

/QUOTE]

No, no gas mask. I avoid picking up my tools with my nose however.

careful where you put your nose.JPG

Follow-up: I have sprayed a few jobs with lanolin spray. They have been outside including in the rain for a few weeks and not a hint of rust. It has the typical lanolin shearing shed tackiness after it dries. I haven't tried cleaning it off to paint yet, I hope that works. I've got citrus spray for that.

Just now I welded up a test piece of scrap and sprayed it all over with lanolin and then tig welded a few beads, one autogenous and about half a dozen with filler. The autogenous one crackled at first (the lanolin was still a thin liquid film so quite a lot) and then welded fine but there were two pinhole porosities visible. The ones with filler didn't crackle at all and the beads looked fine. Since the autogenous one was first it probably had the most lanolin and maybe the heat cooked away some of the rest (it was still visible and wet in places I welded though).

I did a couple with citrus spray as well. One I left just citrus, one I then cleaned with acetone after the orange. Both welded fine but no noticeable difference to the lanolin (except the smell).

I wouldn't intentionally weld over lanolin for a job I cared about but I wanted to test on scrap. I wouldn't feel bad about using lanolin to prevent rust, cleaning it away with citrus -> acetone and then welding. I reckon that this is exactly what prompted the thread in the first place and lanolin is a good solution to my problem.

One interesting thing is the area that is welded turns black, even if it's cooled down first. Actually, the stuff I did today I sprayed while it was still hot and it didn't, but the stuff I had previously done had probably mostly cooled and the welds turned black, on all of about 20 or more welds I sprayed.

Out of interest this was 25mm x 1.6mm SHS, galv and painted, ground clean. Settings:

2.4mm 2% lanthanated
1.6mm ER70S-6 filler
120A w/ pedal
250pps, 40% high, 25% background (just because I already had pulse on, not specially because of the sprays or anything)

I reckon if tig can handle it no fuss, I wouldn't even bother cleaning it off if I was stick or mig welding.

Canola oil in a pressure can, cheap and available in any supermarket. Not only will stop the rust but will act as anti spatter.

Originally Posted by Marc

Canola oil in a pressure can, cheap and available in any supermarket. Not only will stop the rust but will act as anti spatter.

Canola is good for short term operations but eventually when exposed to air it turns into a solid. That may be desirable as the layer is moderately tough but can be a nuisance to remove if you want to paint. I found this our when using canola in my auxiliary oiler on my chainsaw mill and on one of the mills that I left for 12 months it totally gummed up the bar/chain/valve and tubing.

Yeh I gave up on canola as an antispatter.. it realy does not work well....antispatter in a spray tin is not much more expensive if you buy well and it does not misbehave like canola does.

Realy you would have to go a long way to find something better than plain clean light mineral oil...which is more or less what antispatter is.

Lanolin can be hard to get off....um that is sort of the point of it.

If ya welds have gone black...well somethng is burning in the shielding cloud.....

Ever done any blueing of steel...hmmm

cheers

Originally Posted by soundman

If ya welds have gone black...well somethng is burning in the shielding cloud.....

The welds looked fine afterwards, and then I finished the job up and it's all good, and then before packing up for the day I sprayed them down with lanolin and they just changed colour within the HAZ. Surrounding clean metal stays clean and normal coloured, HAZ turns black. This is long after the HAZ has cooled to the touch.

But it didn't happen on the weekend for some reason, when they were still hot or warm and I was experimenting to update this thread.