Rust Preventer Recipe from England, 1958

[Peter Pedisich]

From the "Handyman's Pocket Book", edited by Charles Hayward (1958)

[Joe Butler]

Thanks. . .JoeB

[Malcolm Schweizer]

Sounds like a sticky mess. Not being negative here, but especially the rosin recipe seems it would be a bit hard to remove.

[george wilson]

There are many of these old recipes to be found,especially in reprinted old books. I have one about 2" thick. Some of my recipes use linseed oil based mixtures. Some are "To anoint Naval guns". I would not use most of them on my tools as they are too thick and gloppy.

I will mention here that rosin,or common colophony is made of abietic acid. IT IS AN ACID. I have used it many times in varnish making experiments based on old recipes. It gets VERY chemically active when hot,easily eating into iron,gathering up iron ions to make a nice,transparent brown varnish. At room temperature,it would not be as active,but I still would not trust it over a period of time to be in the presence of my steel tools.

[Mel Fulks]

I really like Charles Heyward's books but yeah, don't think that stuff is available in a spray can. The last secret formula I
tried was boiling some small pieces of wood (pulleys? Don't remember) in olive oil to "make them hard as iron" ...just made them smell like Italian restaurant.

[ian maybury]

Can't recommend it for tools (it'd need research/experiment to test it on e.g. a plane, and it might have downsides - visual or possibly due to the conversion of the surface layer of the metal), but one rust preventive for smaller steel parts that can be very effective is to boil them in a resonably concentrated aqueous solution of phosphoric acid. Which clearly needs care/a safe and sensible set up to avoid splashing etc. I used it quite a lot when designing and building off road racing motorcycles - where it worked very well on smaller parts machined from mild steel. It reputedly also results in a slicker surface, although i never tested that.

It darkens the bright machined surface to a mid grey colour, but otherwise doesn't do anything very obvious - but the resulting iron phosphate conversion layer that forms is very effective in stopping rust. It prevents air and water contacting the underlying steel. I had parts used for several years in frequently muddy conditions that didn't change colour.

The method was recommended by my then metallurgy lecturer, but it doesn't seem to be used much industrially so there could be some downsides - i don't know. Zinc phosphate baths for example are used to pre-treat sheet metal parts on powder paint lines, but in that case chrome passivation is required as best i can recall to stop overgrowth of the resulting iron phosphate layer - if it continues too far it can result in paint adhesion problems. Phosphric acid is a component of most rust removers, but in that case the mechanism is different - it causes the rust to convert to a different form of iron oxide that can be washed off with water...

[steven c newman]

My little recipe? 3in1 oil into a rag. Wipe on, buff off. Tea Light candle for wiping on soles. Remember, I work in a "root celller" of a shop, damp, and dingy. 99% of the tools are rust free. The rusty ones? Either new arrivals, or ones hidden away in some storage box as they aren't needed anymore. Don't really care IF a " twistee to tie rebar" rusts away.....

[george wilson]

Phosphoric acid figures in military Parkerizing,I believe. If you like the dull gray look.

[Jim Matthews]

How do you feel about wiping on light oil, GW?

I've taken to daubing my chisels in a little oil,
when paring endgrain (I saw that in a Japanese video).

Between that and dabbling with oil stones - light oil, I've got plenty.

[ian maybury]

My encounter with the process was in the 'wild' so to speak and using straight phosphoric acid George, the result looked more like natural metal. A bit of reading just now suggests though that 'Parkerising' is as you suggest very similar territory. The proprietary process adds zinc or managanese (?) to deliver more definite colour. Seems the gun and motorcycle restoration guys use it quite a bit now. Kits here: http://www.calvan.com/html/what_is_parkerizing.html and lots of others. Lots written about it on forums too.

To repeat - it'd need cautious testing before committing to anything of value, but that it's used on guns (including working parts) and occasionally as an anti scuff/galling coating on heavily loaded surfaces on some engine parts sounds promising. As well as reducing friction it apparently also retains oil (it's normal to soak finished parts in a light machine oil) which might be useful.

It's not suitable for high nickel, stainless or high alloy steels however, so not sure where the break comes/how it might do on e.g. A2 irons (could interfere with sharpening) but seemingly OK on cast iron and most steels. Choice of the exact variant of phosphoric acid solution and grade of steel seem to make a difefrence to the resulting colour - from light grey to black....