sealing polished mild steel

I'm in the process of making a Christmas pressie for Madam. It's out of steel and if the Gods of Scrap Metal are kind to me, will be nicely smooth and polished (to be fair it has a long way to go at the moment).

How can I stop it rusting? The item is a candlestick so will have wax dripping, but not much heat.

I've researched this a little and found the usual contradictory recommendations. I guess I can't just use wood varnish.

Iain

If you go to an Art shop you can get spray on sealer 'Reeves' (brand , not Reeves 2000!) for artwork and metal, it can be removed with white spirit. I tried it on brass and much, much better than ordinary varnish.

Neil.

You could change your mind and make it out of brass - that way she would think of you every time she had to clean it!

If you do continue with the steel - careful cleaning, degreasing and a cold laquer should be OK.

Norman

I made a staircase at the last house and sealed the bare polished steel with bri-wax wood polish, worked a treat and never rusted.

The old way which is supposed to work is to run a planisher along it with very firm pressure. Sort of rock hard ball end that's highly polished. I believe it was done with a largish highly polished ball ended lathe spinning tool. It's done by hand using a hand tool turning rest.

I tried making a small one out of silver steel and left it fully hard. The surface cracked up. Sort of worked before that but really did need firm pressure.

John

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Either a good hard wax polish or clear lacquer from Halfords.

Thanks, all.

I'm a lazy git and out of the various suggestions I like the 'spray on' from reeves.

The planisher sounds like far too much work!

Iain

I had a blacksmith on Exmoor make me an ornamental wrought iron bracket to support my bar opening bell. He rust protected it for me by applying a coating of local beeswax - just a thought! --------Rik

Ive been using Simoniz Original Canauba wax in the round tin when ive polished parts on machinery ,seems to last quite a while and easily reapplied.

How did they protect the steel jewelery etc. that was made in the old days ? Faceted and highly polished, some looks like diamonds, still good after all these years.

Shellac dissolved in alcohol.

Russell

I've had good results with spray furniture polish that contains Wax and Silicone. The Silicone repels the moisture and the parts stay bright.

Keith

This is all very useful to read about, i'd never heard of using carnuba or bees wax before, or even the silicone spray!

The way I understand how this works, is to first establish what it is that causes the steel to rust. I think in the surface finish of all steel, there are small and very fine imperfections in the molecules of the whole surface of the part, it is these "free" or loose openings in the close knit structure that allow the the free oxygen that's present all around us that we hardly pay attention to*, that slowly settles on the surface. Over time the oxygen begins to chemically react with the steel, and the rust begins to bloom like algae on water or lichen on stone! Rust in a way is a visible example of "oxidative stress" in action on a substance.

So when we apply these myriad of preventatives, which we've found work over the years, we are clogging these free gaps with another substance which doesn't have the same reaction with the iron, that oxygen does, and thus creates a barrier to stop the oxygen settling, because the imperfections have already been filled with something else!

Another analogy that seems to confirm this mental theory of mine is if you were to leave a roughly sawn hunk of steel next to a very finely polished and smoothed piece of steel and leave them outside on a fairly clear spell of weather. We would expect the rust to act far quicker in the roughly sawn piece, simply because there are even more imperfections to settle into than the polished piece. Although both would eventually rust of course without any further action.

I think I've got that right? Interesting fact is that iron should actually be a very common element in the earth but we find it relatively uncommon to find because of the way it reacts to oxygen. The core of the earth itself is made of iron, and hence that, and many other minerals are scattered all over its layers and surface.

Gold is an interesting one because it is so rare, and that it doesn't actually originate from this earth, the scientific consensus on the origin of gold at the moment is that it literally "fell to earth" and was seeded in someway, probably through space rock. So maybe the renaissance artists were onto something when they kept using gold colours to depict heaven?

*You can speed this process up with water and moisture, which allows the oxygen to act even faster than in air, although there is moisture in the air as well.

Michael W

Edited By Michael Walters on 20/12/2016 11:48:21

Car polish works - probably for the reasons Michael has so well explained, but I don't know how it would go with hot candle wax. It survives 40c (shade) temperatures - like it is going to be tomorrow, and the temperature in the sun would have to be 15 to 20 degrees hotter, if not more.

KITTEN Cream Polishing Wax No.1 (available in Austraia) contains a "special combination of silicones and the finest Carnauba waxes." It also has a mild abrasive to help the polishing.

Alan.

I happened across 'Bronzeseal' while browsing.. apparently good for most metals. Towards the bottom of this page: **LINK**

No personal experience of the product

Use stainless steel!  Just to add, bees wax can have traces of honey in it and can be aggressive and cause corrosion.

Clive

Edited By Clive Hartland on 20/12/2016 14:47:17

Yes, but you are missing a couple of important points. The presence of water is essential for rusting and there is an electrochemical reaction.

The surface irregularities give rise to small cells with an ion concentration gradient in the water (or weak carbonic acid solution in fact due to the presence of carbon dioxide). This gradient causes small electric currents to flow which transports the oxygen to the anode of the cell where it reacts with the iron. Even a small piece of grit on the surface can produce a greater concentration gradient and encourage local rusting.

Nearly all rust preventatives seal the surface to exclude air.

Caveat: My metallurgy course at university was over 50 years ago so the understanding may need updating.

Russell.

Microcrystalline wax polishes such as Rennaissance Wax

**LINK**

or the Chestnut alternative **LINK**

would be my choice. Not cheap but work well.

The original wax was developed particularly for metals.

HTH

Jon

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It was made from very high-carbon "crucible steel"

MichaelG.