If you live in an area that has a hot, wet summer, you’ll be all too familiar with the nightmare of tools rusting.

That’s especially the case if you have machine tools that have unprotected ground surfaces – like the bed of a lathe or a milling table. But even low-priced tools like drill presses have unprotected columns and chucks.

Leave the tools for a few weeks in these climatic conditions and you’ll find a veneer of surface rust. Leave them for a month or two and the rust will have started to bite into the surfaces.

The problem is even greater if you’re not using the tools on a daily basis. The more often you use the tools, the more likely that there will be oil and other lubricants being applied, so protecting the surfaces from corrosion.

Over the years I have built up a workshop I am very happy with. A lathe, vertical mill, grinder, belt sander, bandsaw, hydraulic press and many power and hand tools make up the main elements. In the past I have liberally applied spray lubricants like WD40 (and equivalents) to prevent rusting. However, yesterday, when I (finally!) finished giving the workshop a big clean, I took another approach.

Using a ‘Chux’ style washing-up cloth, I applied normal (clean!) engine oil to the surfaces. The Chux cloth holds the oil very well in its pores, allowing a thin and consistent layer of oil to be applied, while the heavier oil better adheres to vertical and upside-down surfaces.  Compared with using an aerosol spray, you also inhale vastly less poisonous mist of airborne oil particles. And of course, it’s a very cheap process – a litre of oil goes a very long way.

In fact, for hand tools, the cloth needs to be kept only moistened with the oil. Hammers, tyre levers, older (un-chromed) pliers and similar tools all got a wipe-over.

On the drill press the chuck, column and exposed nuts and bolts were oiled. On the mill, the complete T-slot table and the ways; on the lathe, the ground beds and the unpainted surfaces of the carriage. And so on…

Of course, you might say – who wants to then have to use oily and slippery tools? But if that’s a problem, you simply use a clean cloth to wipe the parts you’re handling, then oil them again afterwards.

If you live in a very dry climate, or have a workshop where the temperature and humidity are tightly controlled, none of this will be relevant. But for many, I think good old engine oil and a washing-up style cloth will give tool protection for more enduring than spray penetrating oils. And the approach is cheaper and safer too.