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View Full Version : Lee Valley Router Plane, possible iron rash? (fixed by skin doctor)



Alan DuBoff
12-29-2008, 3:45 AM
DISCLAIMER: This is not to whine or complain about this tool, it functions perfectly well, and seems smooth to the touch. I don't want to lap the bottom, if I can help it. I'm using it and it is working just fine to clean out some Stanley #48 grooves, works well once the groove is started, so I find the router plane easier/faster to clean up the groove.

Ok, this is odd, and I was curious why this could be. I have these three planes on the same shelf in my little work area/office. I don't know if the couple computers would cause this, but it's odd that the 2 Lie-Nielsen planes that live on the same shelf don't seem to be effected by the climate. The LN Rabbet Block was living in the garage for most of it's life until the last month, but I haven't cleaned it differently...The garage is a much harsher environment, yet that plane is very clean. The blade in the router plane is new, it's being used for the first time. It was wrapped in paper and inside a plastic case from LV, but has no rust, as one would expect. The router plane lives inside the shed, unwrapped as the other planes.

EDIT: the wider blade which I have used for some door hinges previously, also has rust on it...hmmm...interesting. The LN blades are ok in the planes. It is only the LV Router Plane and the blades in it.

The LN 62 sits on the same shelf for at least the last 6-9 months, the sole is also pretty clean.

I haven't abused any of them, try to wipe them off when I use them, but I can't explain why the Lee Valley router plane would act so different to the same climate.

I used some Starrett tool oil and lightly rubbed it with 1500 wet/dry by hand, did get some rust slurry, but it seemed I would need to lap it to get it out. I wasn't sure if rust was in the metal itself, it feels smooth to the touch. I wiped it down with some denatured alcohol but didn't have anything stronger, might try wiping some kerosene on it.

It's almost as if it has iron rash.

I'm not sure it's worth worrying about for me, it feels smooth to the touch. I haven't used it that much and would prefer not to lap it anyway...as I said, I'm using it and it's working fine, just has some type of iron rash...:o Seems like it must be rust deposits in the metal, but I'm not sure...maybe it's still on the surface, but I would suspect surface should come off with 1500...not sure.

(linky pic to gallery)

http://www.softorchestra.com/woodworking/tools/lv-router-plane/sole.jpg (http://www.softorchestra.com/woodworking/tools/lv-router-plane/)

Rob Lee
12-29-2008, 7:50 AM
Hi Alan -

It could just be the case that the newest plane/tool will rust first. Freshly milled/ground iron rusts very quickly - and can rust where older iron will not. A large part of the "patina" that tools develop protects them... the accumulation of dirts, oils, waxes, and some oxides of iron (the black ones, I believe) actually prevent rust (the undesirable oxide of iron).

I'd be glad to have a look at it though... just email me directly -and we'll get it arranged.

Cheers -

Rob

Luke Townsley
12-29-2008, 8:32 AM
I see you are in California. I am not sure about your location, but I live in a highly polluted city, and anything here that dust can land on will rust or tarnish VERY quickly. Oiling helps, but I still have problems in a hurry if things are left laying out, especially in the open air.

Perhaps this was laid with the sole up or otherwise exposed to oxidizing "fallout."

Eric Brown
12-29-2008, 9:28 AM
This is the prime reason some of us will pay extra for tools that don't rust. So when will you make your whole handtool line with your new nickle/iron metal?

I suspect that either the new premium line isn't doing as well as you hoped (seriously doubt that!) or it's selling so well you don't think you could keep up with additional demand.

Regards, Eric

Alan DuBoff
12-29-2008, 10:39 AM
Hi Alan -

It could just be the case that the newest plane/tool will rust first. Freshly milled/ground iron rusts very quickly - and can rust where older iron will not. A large part of the "patina" that tools develop protects them... the accumulation of dirts, oils, waxes, and some oxides of iron (the black ones, I believe) actually prevent rust (the undesirable oxide of iron).
I was first thinking that something must be different in the formula possibly, if one googles on ductile iron, there's a lot of information. It's a fairly complex formula, and I'm sure it varies quite a bit in the real world.

But funny enough, I think I might have figured out why. I can never let these things rest until it makes sense...:rolleyes:

The window that these planes sit in, is a narrow 2' window, and it opens on the right side. There was quite a bit more dirt on that side, I guess not surprising. The router plane was on that side of the window.

Coincidentally, the bottom of the cutter also exhibits this same condition, but only on the bottom, which was on the shelf side.

Could be whatever is on the shelf, so in a round about way kinda what you (and Luke) was saying! ;)

However, I agree with Eric and would also pay a premium to have tools made out of nickel, and I'll one-up him and suggest that you use bronze for the mechanical hardware, where you use brass today. At least for my taste, ductile iron is to nickel as brass is to bronze. :)

The other thing I wanted to ask you, which I think you you might be able to shed a bit of light on, is this...I have always used mineral spirits in the past to clean iron products, and a fairly knowledgeable blacksmith recently told me not to, and that kerosene is much better as it has oils in it that act as a lubricant. He also mentioned that the strength of mineral spirits was too strong and it cleanses out any pitted areas where rust has built up and/or deteriorated the metal (paraphrasing him, he didn't use these exact words). But he cautioned me in using mineral spirits on any type of iron products, and to use kerosene instead.

Ironically, he mentioned you can safely wash your hands with kerosene, and I know that my ring finger always bothers me when I do that with mineral spirits. As such, I don't think he's blowing steam...since I used kerosene and did wash my hands with it and aside from smelling like fuel, it didn't bother them...:o

That said (whew! sorry for the long reply :) ), I was going to use a 1-2-3 block wrapped with 1500 wet/dry and use kerosene as the spirts to lightly clean the surface. Does that sound like a bad idea?

EDIT: I did get the first groove cleaned up nicely using the router plane! I love that adjuster, that's nice. It would be nicer in bronze...:p But more importantly, would be cool to have a double cutter for the router plane, cause I think your fence is better as my Stanley 48 leaves marks on the side of the board...:o I like using the router plane to clean out the groove though, it's a bit narrow (groove is 5/16" vs. the 1/4" router plane blade).

I need to experiment but I like using the router plane better than the vintage t&g plane. The t&g, while works well, is a bit tricky for me to get setup properly...I might be able to mill something up that would screw on the cutter shaft (whatever you call it) with a double cutter on it, but not sure if I have any tool steel that would work...would be a good blade for LV to offer.

Roger Bell
12-29-2008, 10:00 PM
I have found that to be the case as well.......some of the newer cast iron tools seem to rust sitting right next to older tools that do not.

Gary Herrmann
12-29-2008, 10:13 PM
One of my planes developed iron rash once.

I found that it had been with questionable wood...

Bruce Page
12-29-2008, 11:28 PM
Alan, I don’t know why the LV’s have a rash while the LN’s don’t but I would suspect a slight difference in the material composition. As far as the rash, I’m a big fan of 3M’s Scotch Bright line when it comes to dressing up metal. A little kero and some grey bear hair and those LV’s will look like new.

Alan DuBoff
12-30-2008, 1:54 AM
Alan, I don’t know why the LV’s have a rash while the LN’s don’t but I would suspect a slight difference in the material composition. As far as the rash, I’m a big fan of 3M’s Scotch Bright line when it comes to dressing up metal. A little kero and some grey bear hair and those LV’s will look like new.
Bruce,

That is how I clean up my table saw top, it's iron.

That worked just dandy, and it was just surface rust. I'll chalk that up to it sitting in the spot by the window that was more exposed to the outside.

It is cleaned up now.

My bad Rob, it was just surface rust...:o

EDIT: Bruce, I know your a machinist. Do you have any opinion on using kerosene vs. mineral spirit ?

Chuck Tringo
12-30-2008, 10:02 AM
now thats funny :p


One of my planes developed iron rash once.

I found that it had been with questionable wood...

Bruce Page
12-30-2008, 11:04 AM
EDIT: Bruce, I know your a machinist. Do you have any opinion on using kerosene vs. mineral spirit ?
No. Anything will work, even water as long as you dry it good! :eek:
I often clean small parts right in the sink.

Rob Lee
12-30-2008, 11:09 AM
Bruce,

(snip)
It is cleaned up now.

My bad Rob, it was just surface rust...:o

(snip)



No worries....!

Cheers -

Rob

Bill Houghton
12-30-2008, 11:53 AM
No. Anything will work, even water as long as you dry it good!

In fact, I clean up garage sale planes and suchlike with an SOS pad in hot water. Works for pots, no reason why it wouldn't work for tools, and it cuts through the accumulated grunge, dirt, dead spiders, etc., like nobody's business, as well as knocking down rust.

I then spray all over with WD-40, wipe it down dry, and oil (operating surfaces) and wax (sliding surfaces and surfaces like the inside of a plane body that just sit there looking purty) the plane or tool.

It's comforting to hear that I'm not absolutely alone in using water as a lube.

Jim Koepke
12-30-2008, 1:28 PM
One of my planes developed iron rash once.

I found that it had been with questionable wood...


now thats funny :p

Actually, some woods will react with various metals. Try to pull a nail out of oak when it has been there a while. The tannins in the oak react with the iron. Also, a piece of wood that is not thoroughly dry can cause rust in a plane if one does not clean planes after using them. IMO, this includes disassembly of the blade and chip breaker on a regular basis to clean out the wood accumulation. I seldom find an old blade without pitting along the line of the chip breaker.

jim

Alan DuBoff
12-30-2008, 5:53 PM
No. Anything will work, even water as long as you dry it good! :eek:
I often clean small parts right in the sink.
Ok, but the Starrett tool oil didn't work well...;) That is what I used as it was the only thing at hand in the hand tool area at the time.

I'm stickin' with kerosene, until I find something better. Seems to work well though, other than odor.

It sure did clean up nicely...really nice tool. For my purpose it is way easier to clean out the groove with the router plane. Would really like a tongue cutter for it (with a 1/4" space between them for the tongue size. Kinda like a small U-shaped cutter with a cutter on each side, I think it could screw right into the cutter shaft on the router plane if done correctly.

Lastly, speaking of tannins, I had a couple large chunks of redwood that a friend cut for me off a huge redwood stump (he fished a 60' sections which was 11' wide at the base, out of the Eel river a couple years ago). I had them sitting on my 1944 Yates-American table saw. Took me about 2 hours to clean the rust off the cast iron table once I removed them last week, they had been there only for about 3 months...no more wet wood on the table saw...(kerosene and a scotch pad for it also). I will use this same treatment on my planes from now on. I sprayed the router plane with T-9 after it was cleaned and waxed it with Johnsons...

Bruce Page
12-30-2008, 6:24 PM
Yeah, I think oil would be too viscous. If I'm cleaning something in the shop like my mill table, I just use WD-40.

Alan DuBoff
12-30-2008, 11:39 PM
I usually use T-9, as WD40 will eat up the coating on electrical wires, just habit I guess. Hopefully I'll have some shelf space for my planes soon.

Chris Schumann
12-31-2008, 12:28 AM
This is the prime reason some of us will pay extra for tools that don't rust. So when will you make your whole handtool line with your new nickle/iron metal?
Up to around 6% of Americans (20% of young women) may be allergic to nickel. Just something you learn when your wife sells jewelry for a while.

Bruce Page
12-31-2008, 10:30 AM
I usually use T-9, as WD40 will eat up the coating on electrical wires, just habit I guess. Hopefully I'll have some shelf space for my planes soon.
Interesting, I haven't heard that before. I don't use it around wiring anyway so I guess I'm ok but I'll keep that in mind from now on.
Thanks

David Keller NC
12-31-2008, 12:46 PM
"EDIT: Bruce, I know your a machinist. Do you have any opinion on using kerosene vs. mineral spirit ?"

Alan - I'm not a machinist, but I am a Chemical Engineer with a good bit of chemistry knowledge. Both Mineral Spirits and Kerosene are, of course, mixtures of compounds. In this case they're "apolar aprotic" compounds, which is a fancy way of saying they won't mix with water, and they're not acidic.

From the standpoint of cleaning off goo and sap off of steel, there's no difference, at least to the steel. Steel's not appreciably permeable, and none will soak in. Kerosene is a "higher boiling" mixture than mineral spirits, meaning that its composition will contain heavier chain aliphatic hydrocarbons than mineral spirits. In general, that contributes to the oily feel imparted by kerosene (though mineral spirits is slightly oily as well). Both will very quickly evaporate off of the steel, and very little residue is left.

From a human health standpoint, both kero and mineral spirits are pretty innoccuous, but that doesn't mean completely without risk. Their vapor can be an asphixiant in large amounts - sort of like sniffing glue, it cuts off the oxygen to the brain. Kerosene is a less-refined mixture that may also contain some aromatic hydrocarbons like xylene and toluene, and those are slight mutagens (cancer causers).

That said, the biggest hazard from solvents like these is skin contact dermatitis. Since they dissolve oils and waxes so well, they remove these from your skin. Without those oils and waxes, your skin quickly dries out and cracks.

Alan DuBoff
12-31-2008, 3:04 PM
Interesting, I haven't heard that before. I don't use it around wiring anyway so I guess I'm ok but I'll keep that in mind from now on.
Thanks
Something I learned about when racing sailboats. WD40 will eat the plastic coating off electrical on the boats.

Also, if you spray the winches with WD40 they will get gummed up and seize over time. T-9 is just great in that environment, you can actually spray it directly on electrical and it will protect it.

Alan - I'm not a machinist, but I am a Chemical Engineer with a good bit of chemistry knowledge.
That will work for this! :)

From the standpoint of cleaning off goo and sap off of steel, there's no difference, at least to the steel. Steel's not appreciably permeable, and none will soak in.
The main concern is that if you have any pitting, or voids in the metal where it has rust in pockets, that the mineral spirits was strong enough to cleanse out the area, leaving a void. Granted, this would need to be after a good number of years over time, but the context of the comments were in regards to an old post drill that I'm cleaning up, that the body of the post drill is cast iron, and there is a machined race/bearing that the drill screw fits through. It was mentioned that mineral spirits will clean it much better and leave the voids from the deposits that exist in the metal as it is now.

That said, the biggest hazard from solvents like these is skin contact dermatitis. Since they dissolve oils and waxes so well, they remove these from your skin. Without those oils and waxes, your skin quickly dries out and cracks.
That is very helpful, since I know that the kerosene is easier on the hands, and doesn't seem to bother mine as much as the mineral spirits. If I clean my hands with mineral spirits my ring finger will be bothered and start to be irritated by the spirits, where the kerosene as my friend suggested was more mild and easier on the hands, no irritation at all.