I am buying a nice older drill press tomorrow, and the column has some rust on it. I`m thinking of tossing it on the lathe and cleaning it up - but wanted to see what others use for this process? I listed out some of the things i`ve considered below. I`d choose the cleanest option that removes the least amount of metal...
From the pictures it seems like only 10-20% of the column has some surface rust, the rest is still original machined finish. Some of the chrome on the quill seems to be rusting as well, so may clean that up in the same process.
- Rust converter then oil it up and leave as is
- Sand paper/emory cloth
- Steel wool
- Toolpost grinder
- Wire brush
- File (lol)
- Leave it alone
From the pictures it seems like only 10-20% of the column has some surface rust, the rest is still original machined finish. Some of the chrome on the quill seems to be rusting as well, so may clean that up in the same process.