Timber and the risk of it causing corrosion

I used to work for an oil distribution company, delivering the small orders that their big supplier didn't want, their minimum load being 6000 gals. So my employer sold paraffin burning stoves 'alongside' the fuel. They did an awful lot of home heat oil, doled out from a small metering tanker of about 600gals., meter producing an Invoice for the customer to pay. Think price all those decades ago was 1s and1 1/4d a gallon! Company purchased stoves from manufacturer who packaged them in cardboard boxes. They were stored in a locked brick store on top of a canal embankment very close to the sea. It turned out that cardboard had been made from acidic Thames water and in that damp old store, all the chromed parts went rusty.

John

Have a look at the Gerstner web site. They have been in the business of making tool boxes for a lot of years and appear to make them in most hardwoods.

Across all the comments the common thread would appear to be 'dampness' - rather than directly the wood itself. (of course some of the constituents are complicit but mostly in exacerbating the effect of dampness.)

Generations of woodworkers using metal tools with constant exposure to wood could reasonably argue that this is hardly a significant issue.

Merely an observation.

Regards.

Frank C.

No, I'm sure it's the wood, the Mary Rose was solid oak and every metal object in there is completely b******d, I've seen it.

Yet you see old oak doors with ironwork that has existed for centuries. The acids are water soluble, if seasoned naturally the acids are washed out. I have old oak items in contact with iron that don't cause tannin stain or rust. Probably because the oak is centuries old.

I was just about to say that the tools in the chests in the Mary Rose were stored in damp conditions for quite a while, yet it is remarkable how well they have survived.

The museum is highly recommended.

Seems to be yet another one of those "Rules are made for the guidance of wise men and obedience of fools" thing.

When you know what you are doing, how to select the wood and how to treat it there seems to be a fairly wide variety of woods that can be used for tool boxes, chests and cabinets without corrosion issues.

For the less well informed picking a fairly random sample of xxxxx wood is risky. Hence sensible to stick to a restricted selection of woods that are both known to work well and regularly available in appropriately treated form.

Which is why I wondered what Starrett used for their solid wood instrument cases. These appear to hold the instruments in simple cavities routed out of solid wood with no varnish or other treatment. The outside is varnished.

Clive

Edited By Clive Foster on 05/04/2023 20:09:14

You need water AND oxygen for rust (hence the survival of objects in anaerobic marine mud).

Virtually every Victorian and early 20th century screw or nail I have seen in a door, joist or floorboard has some degree of rust regardless of the timber.

Neil

Forget it, make your boxes from Jacobs crackers. They actually dispell all moisture from a 2 foot radius. Your tools will be lovely and dry.😋

Tusday morning my Airedale rushes out and immediately starts ripping chunks out of the fence! It is Oak laths nailed to three crossbars, by the time I got to her she had a hole big enough to get her head through! What ever went through the hole she wanted, cat or rat.

The Oak laths were like cardboard to her teeth, brittle and easily ripped up. Luckily I had 2 spare Chestnut laths to replace the damaged ones. Pulling the nails showed rust as Neil said, I re-used the nails.

Next door are petrified of her and visibly back away when i walk past! So I had to do the repair Asp. All the fences are Oak Lath, now 23 years old I really wonder how long the Oak will last?

When we moved to our present property approx 20 years ago, part of the fencing had old oak posts and larch lap fencing.. Not sure how long before us the posts had been there. They are starting to show their age now, a couple have rotted at ground level, but I bolted a new support post to the base.
When we moved in they looked well past their sellby date, but are still going.
Another neighbour replaced the fence at the bottom of our garden not long after we moved in and recently replaced it again.
So Oak and Larch will greatly outlast tanalised timber.. The nails holding the Larchlap to the oak posts have rusted, but are still holding the panels in place, so I am not convinced that the oak has enhanced any rusting.
In a previos property the person next door put in a tanalised fence and after 2 years the posts had rotted off, but I think that he had bought them cheaply.

That's true, but only after a fashion. I've worked on the century-old oak doors on a local church, and the ironwork looked fine until it came to disturbing it. Behind the fittings the iron and wood had amalgamated into a sort of brittle black mass, and the fixing bolts had almost ceased to exist behind their heads. Reinstating the fittings was quite a challenge.

George

It doesn’t take long outdoors.