On 2/11/2012 3:45 PM, Greg Guarino wrote:
There's an old Craftsman table saw in the basement of the building my Dad had his office in. It's probably 30 years old, and never saw much use. I'm trying to fix it up a bit to use it on occasion.

I know that Craftsman is held in low regard here, but perhaps I can prevail on the nice folks here for some advice.

Rust:
The main table surface had a fair amount of surface rust, but hardly any "bubbling". The "wings", if that's the right term were more badly rusted around the edges, which had been bare metal.

I went at it with Scotch-Brite and a rotary wire brush. The main table surface came out passably well, I think. The wing edges still look rusty, but I flattened them down enough, I think.

I had doused the whole thing pretty liberally with WD-40 a couple of weeks ago, before I did any brushing. So now I have a slurry of rust particles and WD-40 covering the table top. I could use some sort of degreaser to get it off, but then I imagine I'd need to cover it with something to keep it from rusting again. Wax, I'm thinking.

Any better ideas?

get a grill stone for the final polish, then cut the mess (after rags)
with brake cleaner. Have the wings sandblasted, and powdercoated, and
protect by keeping dry.

--
Steve Barker
remove the "not" from my address to email