rust preventive test...the final round

[kane22]

My last thread was starting to become a confusing mess, so I thought I'd start a new one. After a summer of testing anything and everything I could think of, I ended up with four that consistently seemed to do the best. I sanded down a piece of angle iron on the belt sander to a nice clean finish. Then would hit it with the heat gun to get it warm (per frog lube instructions) apply the products. After leaving it sit for a while I would wipe it off just leaving a thin coat. I tried to be as consistent as I could. Then put it outside, and spray it with water every morning and evening. We get pretty humid summers here in PA.

To recap...almost every kind of oil I tested would fail after the first time it rained. Even just spraying them with water seemed to do them in after a couple days. The paste type products did the best. Forum member scdub sent me tung oil, and tung oil with orange solvent to test. This was a little different than anything else. Once it's dry it's dry to the touch. After a couple of tests, it seemed like the tung oil with orange solvent did the best of the two. It held it's own against everything else, so included it in the final round.

With summer winding down, this will probably be the last time I do this. I'm going to leave them out and we'll see what happens. These were the ones that held up the best.

1 frog lube paste
2 Burts bees lip balm
3 my home made mixture, version 3.0
4 tung oil with orange solvent

day 1 aug12th

day 3

day 7

 

[kane22]

day 10, the tung oil is starting to show rust spots now. We had a couple days with heavy rain storms.

day 12

 

[kane22]

day 15. Still hot and humid, but dry. My homemade mixture looks the cleanest by a small amount. The frog lube shows a lot of tiny specs earlier than the others, but they don't seem to get much worse. Burts is holding its own too.

day 17

 

[scdub]

Awesome testing!

Thanks for including that Tung oil too.

 

[AlongTheRazorsEdge]

If rust prevention in storage is your goal, CRC SP-400 is outstanding. We used it on freshly machined parts, some of which sat outside in the weather for extended periods without issue. It will be slightly harder to remove but the protective abilities are about as good as you can get.

 

[nbp]

Have you tested this stuff at all?

EDCI FORMULA - HOME

Welcome to the home of EDCI FORMULA®. Even the highest quality stainless steels can and will rust with use and over time. EDCI FORMULA’s long lasting formula protects metal parts by blocking rust and corrosion.

edciformula.com

 

[kane22]

Have you tested this stuff at all?

EDCI FORMULA - HOME

Welcome to the home of EDCI FORMULA®. Even the highest quality stainless steels can and will rust with use and over time. EDCI FORMULA’s long lasting formula protects metal parts by blocking rust and corrosion.

edciformula.com

No I haven't, but it looks like a good one to try. Something that's food safe for a knife makes sense.

I'm running behind in getting pics posted. I also tried a salt water test. I left them submerged in salt water for 4 hours, and then set them out in the rain. Spoiler alert...if you're going to play around salt water, I'd look for a stainless option. Everything rusted fast. They did clean up better that what I thought, but there was some light etching in the steel.

We've been blessed with more humid and rainy weather this week. I did one more test after I sanded everything down again.

 

[nbp]

I have the EDCi and use it here and there but our modern steels are so corrosion resistant it’s almost pointless anyways. Haha. I need to get a little carbon steel slipjoint or something to test it on. Anyways I just thought I’d offer it as another option if you were looking for products to try.

 

[MrStabby7]

Awesome! Thanks for testing. I like how the bare section gets eaten alive so fast.

 

[Guy McVer]

All these tests have solidified Burt's Bees for me as a go-to multipurpose item to put in any kit. Lip balm has so many other uses, and this just adds one more that I didn't know about. I am amazed at how well it has performed compared to Frog Lube. It's been consistently close.

 

[kane22]

All these tests have solidified Burt's Bees for me as a go-to multipurpose item to put in any kit. Lip balm has so many other uses, and this just adds one more that I didn't know about. I am amazed at how well it has performed compared to Frog Lube. It's been consistently close.

I thought being waxed base it might do ok, but I was surprised how well it did too. I'm like you, I always have some around and now it seems more uses.

 

[kane22]

day 23. I called it this point, I took a little oil and a scrubby pad and cleaned them all off as best a could (before and after pics). The bare steel was pitted. The tung oil with orange citrus looked perfect for the first 4-5 days. Then it seemed like the rain started to get to it. It had a lot of etching till the end. The other three were fairly close. For 23 days in the sun/rain/humidity I think that's respectable. It did take me longer on the belt sander to get the angle iron cleaned up after this.

 

[kane22]

Salt water test. I left them soak I salt water for four hours. It happened to be raining hard that day, so I put them out side then. I didn't know if the rain would help, and wash the the salt off or make it rust even faster??? They were all discolored when I pulled them out of the salt water. Anyway is you can see nothing worked very well. Frog lube, and Burts did the best. This is all in an 8 hour period. The last pic is after I cleaned em up again.

 

[kane22]

Since they were still calling for lots of rainy/humid days, I sanded everything down one last time. I added Alpha CLP back in again, since it had done well when I first started this little project. I applied all the products and hit it with the heat gun real quick. After sitting for an hour, I took a paper towel and wiped them all off good. Basically you couldn't even tell there was anything on there. As you can see frog lube easily did the best this time. Burts and Alpha CLP are about the same, with my homemade mixture coming in last. So there you have it. I had no dog in the fight, I just wanted to see what would work the best for my own stuff. I couldn't test everything, but I think I have a much better idea of what will work now.

Frog lube...easy to apply, doesn't take much heat to get thin and get anywhere you need it to, it actually seems to do better with a really, really thin coat, food safe, consistently did well, does have the strongest smell, not bad but if you were hunting I don't know what a deer would think of it.

Burts Bees...easy to apply, sure impressed me for something that's not even marketed as a rust preventative, it's good lip balm.

Homemade version 3.0... It's a beeswax, coconut oil formula that I melted down. From the last test it looks like it might not do as well with a super thin coat, but for the most part it was right there with the other two. Food safe. It is the waxiest of the bunch. It also seems to work great on wood and leather. I used it on all my axe handles, and a shovel that's out in the elements all the time. It's not sticky or slippery, just a really nice feel IMO. On leather, water just beads up and runs off. I think it will be a handy thing to have in a pack.

day 3 rain every day

day 8 a few more rainy days