[TheForge] Re: routine maintenance with WD40?

[Mike Spencer]

cjm> I used to follow Francis Whitaker's prescription of spraying just
cjm> about everything in the shop with WD40 every Monday morning.
cjm> [snip]
cjm> I'm sure I'm overlooking a good solution. Ideas?

chuck> Try Fluid Film rust and corrosion preventative.

That's my choice. Seems to be very effective, even on stuff that's
outdoors.  Direct rain beating on it will wash it off but it seems to
resist just a little wet.

An interesting feature of Fluid Film is that it's thixotropic,
i.e. it's kinda thick and gloppy but becomes more fluid when
vibrated.  It appears that the aerosol cans do a neat trick with the
propellant so that the stuff is frothing when it hits your workpiece
and that frothing action makes it penetrate into holes and crevices.

If you buy it bulk -- gallon cans, say -- it helps to put it on with
a power sprayer.  If you have air, you're all set.  I have an
electric sprayer that I use to apply FF to the underside of my aging
pickup.  As undercoat, the thixotropic property helps because
road vibration seems to help it penetrate into crevices.

It *will* go through a manual spritzer (read: old Windex bottle) but
you have to shake it frequently to keep it liquid.

I don't spritz everything in the shop weekly but anything that shows
some rust where I don't like it gets spritzed and wiped down with FF.
It's usually quite awhile before I have to do it again.

Didn't someone on this list report several years ago that FF was used
by the (Canadian?) Navy on shipboard?

WD40 to get it apart. Fluid Film to keep it from rusting up again.

(Actually, I liked CRC 5-56 better than WD40 for getting rusty stuff
apart and used to buy it by the gallon but my local guys stopped
carrying it.)

- Mike

-- 
Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada       .~. 
                                 						   /V\ 
mspencer@tallships.ca            						  /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/						  ^^-^^

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