[TheForge] routine maintenance with WD40?

[Dave Brown]

At 09:52 08/25/03 -0400, you wrote:
>I used to follow Francis Whitaker's prescription of spraying just about
>everything in the shop with WD40 every Monday morning. Since WD40 is
>mostly mineral spirits, I'm wondering if this is something I really want
>to breathe so much. What do other people do to keep things like post
>vise, cone mandrel, swage blocks, and small tools from rusting?

I stick with the WD-40, but don't over spray.  I also have a can of liquid 
WD-40 that I splash onto a rag and use it to wipe stuff down.  The main 
ingredients in WD-40, as far as I know, are aliphatic petroleum distillates 
which include naphthas and paraffin oil (not paraffin wax).  I believe that 
these aliphatic distillates are different than just as broadly defined 
"mineral spirits", but I could be wrong.  In any event I'm not concerned 
about the aromatic smells in the shop.  Where hundreds of thousands, if not 
millions, of people using the product every day with nary a peep about 
problems in the big news media ... well I just think that any worries about 
WD-40's health effects are way over blown.  But I wouldn't want to go 
spraying the stuff up my nose either.

Dave Brown
Heritage Smithing
Green Bay, WI
ABANA, UMBA, GoM, MODA, ARG