Magic rust preventer?

In article , Peter Fairbrother writes

When the central heating guy has to drain our radiators, he adds some corrosion inhibitor - I think it might be called Fernox or something like that. No idea whether it would be good enough for this application, but it might be worth investigating.

David

There is a solutiuon added to water used in wire edm machines to prevent rusting, and is sold by Erodex in the UK. Not cheap though.

erodex.com ->products -> wire edm -> .pdf catalogue -> page 33

AWEM

aieee, £60 for 600l worth. Don't suppose I can get 6l worth for 60p :(

Don't fancy Fernox either, sounds too corrosive to hands.

Tried with suds - wow, what a mess! - and they didn't work as well as just water.

One surprise, I was using diamond cutting disks, they ones for Dremels, on the mill, and I thought that once the diamonds on the edge wore out they wouldn't cut any more - not a bit of it. I think the metal in the middle wears out and exposes fresh diamonds on the surfaces. Which is good as I am cutting Rockwell 68 steel and the diamonds wear out quite fast.

Will probably try using a metal cutting wheel, one of the thin ones for angle grinders, for roughing out. But carbide will barely touch it, so that may not work and it may need diamond.

Thanks all,

-- Peter Fairbrother

A Zep product was menti A protective coating for ferrous surfaces where safety, low-odor, short-term protection and paintability are important. Leaves no visible residue. Will not interfere with subsequent painting of treated surfaces.

Sounds good. MSDS says 10-20% by weight triethanolamine and

Sodium carbonate or washing soda is said to reduce rusting.

jsw

Peter Fairbrother wrote: [...]

Well, that worked.

Messy, and my ears and the neighbours won't forget it in a hurry (using an angle grinder disk in a mill is NOISY!), but the metal is getting into shape.

Is that a well-known technique? Making a disk holder only took a couple of minutes, and it went through the HRC 68 steel, which I had broken a couple of good carbide endmills on (ouch), quite easily.

-- Peter Fairbrother