Dirty rotten rust

If there’s one shop enemy every woodworker shares, it’s rust.

It’s inevitable in a woodshop filled with cast iron surfaces that eventually you’re going to get something wet on them. Then, your not-so-good friend Mr. Rust moves in with a vengeance. My table saw, band saw, drill press, disc sander, jointer – they’ve all been victims at one time or another.

The most recent was my table saw, where working with freshly cut hemlock a few weeks ago took a toll. Not while working the wood – I would have seen and caught that when it happened – but overnight. I’d left a few pieces of milled hemlock on my table saw, planning to pick up where I left off in the morning. Moving those pieces the next day revealed strips of fresh rust.

I spent a few hours with ultra-fine sandpaper, steel wool and, finally, paste wax to bring that table back to normal. This weekend, I happened again. You can see it in the above photo, and you can probably guess what I did.

I had been laminating a small panel and apparently set it down for a moment, not realizing what I was doing. It was probably for only a couple seconds, and then I went about my clamp-up and moved the panel to let it dry. But I never looked at my saw table.

Today, I found the results. The glue scraped right off, but it left three brand new lines of rust on my previously spotless saw table. I’m in the middle of two projects and don’t have the time to stop and get those out, so until I finish up I’ll be looking at them.

Perhaps that’s a good thing, and a reminder every time I use the saw not to be so stupid.