Preserving old metal..

[Mike Holbrook]

So I have my new "old" brace or drill cleaned up but most of the original nickel etc. plate is worn off. I am wondering how others protect all the exposed metal from the elements. I guess one could have the metal replated but I am not so sure I want to do that. I was wondering how others approach this issue?

[Russell Sansom]

I store all my tools in closed boxes which seems to do the trick very well. As a comparison, chisels in my shop are rust-free after 35 years. I left a chisel on a stairway in a building I was restoring in San Francisco and it was coated with orange in 40 days.
Ron Hock's "The Perfect Edge" deals with many of these questions.

[David Weaver]

For something you're not going to use a lot and on a surface that won't be handled a lot, paste wax. Doesn't need to be neat and perfect, just needs to be on there.

I'm not afraid to shellac non-critical areas on cheap tools like bench planes, though it's not a particularly nice looking thing to do on bare metal like a brace. A wash coat would be less conspicuous.

For something like a brace, though, i probably really wouldn't do anything at all, if I did wax it once (never bothered on a brace), i wouldn't do it again until I saw rust (out of apathy).

Biggest bugaboo for rust is chisels (store them somewhere dry and get rid of them if you spend more time cleaning rust than using them) and especially fresh cast iron plane cheeks. I always wax freshly lapped plane cheeks on a restored plane, and sometimes shellac with a very light coat of shellac (it'll always come off with alcohol, and japanning won't).

[Mike Holbrook]

I have a very good metal wax from Highland Woodworking/Hardware called Renaissance Micro-Crystalline Wax that I will try, works well on table saw etc. tables. I was a little afraid of getting wax in threads etc. I have seen what looks like burned wax on some tools I have restored that is very hard to remove so I was a little concerned about it. Now i am thinking it may have been a varnish or shellac, had not thought of that.

Does anyone used one of the gun blues? I think I read somewhere that there are some that are fairly good at protecting & fighting rust.

[Johnny Kleso]

Bob Smalser chisel expert uses Oxophor Blue but I dont like the look

[David Weaver]

It was probably varnish, shellac or some sort of drying oil. linseed oil on old tools makes a dark crust, and it's really hard.

[David Weaver]

By the way, I use oxpho blue sometimes, but not necessarily as a rust protectant. No cold blue is that great at preventing rust. It's important to follow the cold blue with a wax if you want rust protection. I have blued chisels that are spotted with rust. I blued them because they were kind of doggish looking and bluing them makes them look more uniform and nicer.

The brownell's oxpho blue is a nice thing to have around. It probably does offer a little rust protection because you can smell phosphoric acid in it, but it is not a moisture barrier, and you will still get rust with it.