Power tools in the rain: adice?
 

I figured wood workers might be a good group to post this question to.
Was building an outdoor shed in our back yard. Had a lot of tools out
there. Foolishly trusted the weather man who claimed no chance of
showers.

We caught a pop of thunder shower today. Had all my tools for the shed
outside. Got rained on hard for 15 minutes. Wondering if there is any
advice on how to handle them. I dried them all off (
and took them inside). But was wondering if sraying them internally
with WD40 for its water displacement qualities would help - or any
other suggestion.

Left out tools: framing nail gun, pancacke compressor, circular sawm
drill.

Many thanks!

wrote in message
oups.com...
I figured wood workers might be a good group to post this question to.
Was building an outdoor shed in our back yard. Had a lot of tools out
there. Foolishly trusted the weather man who claimed no chance of
showers.

We caught a pop of thunder shower today. Had all my tools for the shed
outside. Got rained on hard for 15 minutes. Wondering if there is any
advice on how to handle them. I dried them all off (
and took them inside). But was wondering if sraying them internally
with WD40 for its water displacement qualities would help - or any
other suggestion.

Left out tools: framing nail gun, pancacke compressor, circular sawm
drill.

Many thanks!


Nail gun should be ok. The rest (anything with motor and electrical switch)
should be completely dry first. Don't use WD40.

If you have mud inside the tools, flush it with distilled water and make
sure you don't have sand embedded in the moving parts and let it completely
dry. I would take it apart and manually clean it with distilled water and
re-grease all moving parts.

x-no-archive: yes

WD40 attracts dirt like a magnet, remember? A lot of people foolishly
spray their marine engines with WD40, only to see that a year later the
electrical connections are corroded, because the oil left over has
attracted dirt and that dirt has attracted moisture.

If you are worried, then best to get a dry out spray for electrical
equipment (have no products in mind right now). But from years of
working in the rain on the west coast of BC with power tools, most
power products do hold up well enough after being rained on, or worse,
without worry.

"RicodJour" wrote in message
oups.com...

Spraying WD-40 is as likely to short out the tools as water if you
spray enough of it to displace the water.


Actually, Ive sprayed it on the inside of wet distributer caps on many
occasions--didn't seem to short them out, quite the contrary in fact.

Still, it might wash out the lubricant in the case at hand so suggest be
careful if spraying it on / around any moving parts that don't have sealed
lube.

--

SVL

Nail gun should be ok. The rest (anything with motor and electrical
switch)
should be completely dry first. Don't use WD40.

What's wrong with WD-40? One should let the carrier evaporate after
spraying so that the sparks don't cause a minor "explosion" but driving out
water is what WD-40 does best!

"John Gilmer" wrote in message
...




Nail gun should be ok. The rest (anything with motor and electrical
switch)
should be completely dry first. Don't use WD40.

What's wrong with WD-40? One should let the carrier evaporate after
spraying so that the sparks don't cause a minor "explosion" but driving
out
water is what WD-40 does best!



Read the other posts regarding WD40. It attracts dust and dirt plus you
don't want it driving the dirty acid ran water (good conductor by the way)
into areas in the motor and electrical contacts. WD40 is a good conductor,
certainly much more so after it attracts dusts and dirt, while distilled
water, which I prefer over WD40, is a good insulator but 120V may not make
that much of a difference unless you run into higher voltages in the kV
range. Just my opinion FWIW.