rust preventive test

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kane22

Joined
Feb 25, 2013
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The hot and humid weather has hit here in PA. So I thought it would be a good time to do a little testing on some of the oils I have. I cleaned up some angle iron on my belt sander this morning. Masked sections off with painters tape, applied a coat of everything with a q-tip, and wiped off the excess with a paper towel. leaving a light coating, the same as I would on a knife. For round one we have...
1 mineral oil
2 coconut oil
3 alpha clp grease (doesn't look like you can get it anymore)
4 3 in one oil
5 birchwood Casey sheath rust preventive
6 kroil oil
I gave them a light misting of water after I put them out, and we had a heavy rain storm in the afternoon. So far the alpha grease is the clear winner. Followed by the Birchwood Casey, and coconut oil. I'll post pics as soon as I remember how. I'm planing to test some more things too. If anyone is interested I'll keep this thread going. I'd like to find something that's food safe and still did a good job, but I'm testing everything I have laying around.
 
Nice man, yea please keep it going and post pics if you can (you can use imgur for that). I'm currently trying to find something that will keep corrosion and rust off and away from my knives while they are being stored for a while without use.
 
I must be stupid, cause I can't get a pic posted on here to save my life. I have em on Imgur, and that's as far as I get.
 
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After 48 hours. We've been having heavy rains every day, hot and humid. So about as bad as it gets around here.
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The Alpha grease was looking good till today. The coconut oil is now in second place. The rest are not looking much better than the untreated section (after the #6). The kroil oil was a last min entry under the partial piece of tape.

I ordered some frog lube paste for the next round. I've always heard mixed reviews in the fire arms world, so I never tried it. It does seem to do really well as in rust prevention tests I've seen though.
 
On to round two. I applied them all, then hit it with the heat gun on low and wiped the the excess off. Got some surprising results.
1 break free clp
2 fluid film
3 frog lube
4 coconut oil again
5 Burts bees lip balm
6 unprotected steel
 
Day 4. Frog lube, and Burts bees still going strong. I wiped them both off with a paper towel yesterday, just to see if that would make a difference. I've also been spraying them with water every morning. I thought the break free clp would do better from other tests I've seen.
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A few things seem clear so far...unprotected carbon steel will start to rust fairly quickly after getting wet, and none of the oils did very well after heavy rain. Anything that's more of a pasta has done better. An indoor salt water spray test could be interesting, maybe the oils would do better. For now, frog lube and Burts bees will move on to round three.
 
A good friend who was "in-the-know" told me that our Navy Seals use Frog Lube on their gear for corrosion protection.
 
After 6 days, frog lube and Burts bees were again the best. Oil failed early again. Lard did better than I expected. It was just the jelled fat from a pot roast I made, nothing special. It's been hot, humid, with storms on and off.

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