Generally, this is the sort of question I could just look up…somewhere else, but there’s a definite model railroad angle so I’ll ask here.
My brother got me a set of machinists squares for Christmas. He’s an engineer, so when I asked him about cleaning the packing oil/grease/stuff that made me wash my hands off, he gave me a rather complicated answer that I promptly didn’t remember.
So here comes a series of questions:
What is a good way to clean the whatever it is off? I’m an apartment dweller, so things that are…not of the good smelling variety are problematic. Unless its like mineral spirits, then I can open the window and go away for a while.
I remember him saying something about coating them with something to protect them. Is this required if they’re going to live in a nice, clean environment like someone’s apartment with occasional forays into the garage (at my parent’s house)? Will any protective material get protective material or otherwise damage the materials we use in our hobby? See I said there was an MRR specific angle!
If you Google cosmoline removal, you’ll come up with a bunch of hits, a lot having to do with removing it from your AK-47.
Basically that stuff is put on to protect the item after manufacture, and obviously has to be removed before you use the tool. Nobody puts it back on if they expect to use the tool frequently. The cosmoline protects the item from moisture and rusting. I think I would be inclined to wipe the tool down with a very light coat of machine oil or maybe wd-40 when I was done with it. Obviously you’d have to do a good job wiping the oil off before using again.
I was hoping it was something simple in the end. I’ll probably just make sure they stay clean in the first place and I wash my hands a lot to keep the oils off the models anyhow, so that should help the tools too.
As indicated earlier, paint thinner (aka mineral spirits) will remove that gunk. A friend and I bought some steel 3-2-1 blocks that were covered the same way. Neither of us have coated them with anything after removing the gunk. I have had mine well over a year with no rust or other corrosion.
I’ve been a machinist for 40 years. I’ll give you my take on taking care of tools. If they’re in an air conditioned environment and they get a little oil on them, wipe them off with a shop towel. A shop towel that’s a little oily itself is even better. WD-40 is good to get the original packing grease off, as is mineral spirits. Mineral spirits leave an oily film that’s fine. Just don’t let steel tools lay around in damp areas or rooms and you’ll be fine. If a slight haze of corrosion happens, polish it off with some oil dampened Scotchbrite.
I’ve had some of my tools since high school, when dinosaurs roamed the earth. I’ve bought and used tools that were slightly rusted, cleaned them up as above, and they’re just fine. Polished surfaces are somewhat rust resistant because they’re polished. Some of the old timers put moth balls in their tool boxes to ward off corrosion.
Most amateurs are WAY too concerned about tool care. If you use tools often, as I do, just handling them with oily hands takes care of a lot of it. While I realize you’re worried about oils and plastic models and probably won’t have the oils on your hands a machinist does, a quick wipe with a WD-40 sprayed shop towel now and then will do all that needs to be done.
A lot of the newer machined products are coated w/ more of a wax, that can be scrubbed off w/ warm water and dish detergent. Brake drums and rotors for example. Just give it a try before moving on to more “smelly” aggressive solvents.
If you notice any issues w/ moisture affecting the machined surface lightly coat w/ CRC and wipe clean.
Yeah, I agree. When my brother was telling me what to do to make sure they survive, I was thinking “I’m working with tiny little plastic trains, not the real ones,” which is what he does at his company (he’s a process engineer at one of the titans of the railroad parts business). I worked a summer in college in a tool and die plant, helping with QA, and that job is why I’m now a fancy analyst in a comfy office instead.
Mineral spirits seems to have done the trick and they’re all nice and not slippery any more.
Sort of the same backgorund as me, though my time in the machine shop I was more or less jack of all trades, it wasn’t really that I took work as a machinist, it’s when they were short they had me run machines or do QC. It was actually ok except they wouldn;t tell me ahead of time, and when I worked up front I was expected to wear a shirt and tie. Ruined a lot of shirts with EDM oil, that stuff is like laser toner. But I learned a bunch about precision machining and how to use various measuring tools. Caring for heavier duty stuff, I learned from my Dad. Still have many of his wrenches and sockets, some of it is 60+ years old.
Knowing how to use various fine measuring tools is why I had to laugh at the one old article in MR where the author said he preferred a digital caliper to an analog one because “he didn’t have to worry about how many times the needle went around the dial”
More delicate stuff I keep in the original cases they come with. I do have a set of squares in my toolbox, had them for about 4 years now. Cleaned them off when I got them, and they are still fine, but my toolbox is always inside under a controlled climate, it’s not in a damp and musty area of the house or anything. Nothing in it shows the slightest sign of rust or corrosion. When we did a lot of work installing large plotters, for my mechanics tools I did snag a tip from one of our clients, those things came in a giant box with an equally giant version of one of those dessicant packs (like the size of a hand warmer) so i tossed one in the bottom of the box. Dunno if it ever made a difference, maybe it was just a placebo, but none of my tools has ever rusted. But then, I don;t leave my toolbox out in the rain, and I wipe things off when I’m done using them, which I’m sure doesn;t get 100% of the grease and oil off, but rather ends up leaving a thin coat over every part of the tool, not just the corner that got a drop of oil on it.