I’ve been using some light oil on a rag to protect the top surface, sometimes a mist of WD-40. But I’m finding it doesn’t last long, what are you using?
Was considering using Fluid Film but not sure the waxy film is a good idea.
WD40 300035 6.5 Oz. Specialist Long-Term Corrosion Inhibitor https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0099UARIW/ref=cm_sw_r_awdo_navT_g_M2Y000J9H4CR99VBF51T
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Thanks for the tip. I was thinking the same thing about my Arcflat and my table saw top.
thx, I’ll give it a try.
This is going to sound odd but I use it all the time on steel and cast iron machine tables.
Furniture paste wax First application put it on a little thick. Let dry, buff off.
It lasts for a year or more. One possible down side is that it makes the top a bit slippery (useful on some machines).
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I do have some of that wax, I’ll give it a try.
Thx
I put meguiars paste car wax on my tablesaw
I don’t know about welding tables, but I do know about cast iron woodworking tool tops. I wax them with Renaissance Wax, but the thing that really keeps them from rusting is keeping a sheet of painter’s plastic drop cloth on them. I can leave my equipment in VERY HUMID Maine coast house from Sept to June and there is NO rust on the tops…
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I got some HF moving blankets and thought they would be good to keep my machines clean but a mouse found a use for the one on my shaper and I’m glad I found it as soon as I did…
Use plastic drop cloths. Apparently ‘humidity’ falls. When it falls and lands on cast iron, it causes rust. I discovered this quite by accident when I came back to my place in Maine and was not too surprised to find the cast iron top to my BS totally covered in rust (although I had waxed it 9 months earlier). It was rusty everyplace EXCEPT one section where I had left some random sheet of plastic. There was NO rust and there was a very fine line between the covered and uncovered sections. Been using this method ever since, probably ten years now…
Cloth drop cloths will absorb the moisture and pass it on to the iron. It also makes a nice home for Mice and mouse pee…
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Here in Tennessee it can be 25 one day and 75 the next I found my table saw ice on it one time from where the cold cast iron had condensation from the humidity and it froze. It had a thick layer of liquid wrench on it at the time and the ice disappeared as it warmed up with no damage to my relief
I’ve seen in the past where people are showing “shop tricks” where they’re cleaning the rust off a cast iron surface like a table saw bed using a sander…
Insane what people will do to a milled finish. In the past to remove the rust once it’s on there I just use a 16 gauge stainless steel scraper and basically burnish all the rust off and then at least the table will keep the flat geometry it was supposed to have.
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I use a red scuff pad or steel wool saturated with WD40 and wipe off with a rag then coat with wax or use some thicker than WD40 spray lube.
I’ve seen people online running a belt sander orbital sander on one, which is crazy.
True and it depends on how much rusty surface do you have. Btw, thank you all for the recommendations, I’d like to try Minwax finishing instead of WD40 products
Bee’s wax might work as well, and some plastic draped over it, I’m in the garage as well, very little heat 
I live in Canada, Ontario thinking getting myself a little wood stove for the back corner keep a kettle on as well. I was also thinking a bug netting and one those bug zappers, nothing worse than a fly landing into your welding puddle.
+1
Renaissance wax and plastic painter’s drop cloth works for me on all my cast iron surfaces.
Cold blue it, then pastewax to protect?
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Use this on my welding table. Does a good job of preventing spatter form sticking.
Ooooh, thats the good stuff. Been using it forever.
Spray on table and let it sit a few minutes, lightly rub with rag, good to go.
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