Found a solution to a problem, and thought others would benefit from it too:
I have noticed a year or so ago that my dies and shell holders tend to develop little red rust spots on them. House has A/C running year round (Houston Texas) at 70 F, and we run one large dehumidifier per floor, set to 45%. It gets very humid here in summer, Gulf Coast climate.
My reloading room has a dedicated dehumidifier set to 40%, running with the door closed, but some gap below the door. Heats up the room to about 75 F which should help a little. Actual humidity varies between 36% and 43% based on a separate (and more accurate) electronic sensor intended for herbarium applications that alarms at 55%. [No i don’t own any lizards. ]
Dies and other carbon steel (even stainless steel) components like shell holders have a thin layer of oil on them (Ballistol spray). I have an additional large desiccant holder and a heating element in the safe. Even with all of these precautions, i have seen minor amounts of rust forming on the trigger guard of a rifle that is always in the safe.
So asked my industrious wife to buy me a large transparent cookie jar with a good air tight seal. She found the one below, and for the past 6 moths i have put all my dies and other valuable tools inside, with a freshly regenerated desicant, Imperial lube on the rubber seal, with a cheap hygrometer inside the cookie jar to monitor when to regenerate.
Humidity drops to 3-5% within about 2 hours and stay there. I have found that i can open the lid, remove the dies i need, and then reclose the lid maybe 20 seconds later, and the humidity does not move beyond 7%, then comes down again to the original value. A desiccant pack (plug-in version) seems to last for about 3 or 4 months before it gets to 15%, where i would once again regenerate it. No more issues with rust forming on my dies.
Hope this helps!
I have noticed a year or so ago that my dies and shell holders tend to develop little red rust spots on them. House has A/C running year round (Houston Texas) at 70 F, and we run one large dehumidifier per floor, set to 45%. It gets very humid here in summer, Gulf Coast climate.
My reloading room has a dedicated dehumidifier set to 40%, running with the door closed, but some gap below the door. Heats up the room to about 75 F which should help a little. Actual humidity varies between 36% and 43% based on a separate (and more accurate) electronic sensor intended for herbarium applications that alarms at 55%. [No i don’t own any lizards. ]
Dies and other carbon steel (even stainless steel) components like shell holders have a thin layer of oil on them (Ballistol spray). I have an additional large desiccant holder and a heating element in the safe. Even with all of these precautions, i have seen minor amounts of rust forming on the trigger guard of a rifle that is always in the safe.
So asked my industrious wife to buy me a large transparent cookie jar with a good air tight seal. She found the one below, and for the past 6 moths i have put all my dies and other valuable tools inside, with a freshly regenerated desicant, Imperial lube on the rubber seal, with a cheap hygrometer inside the cookie jar to monitor when to regenerate.
Humidity drops to 3-5% within about 2 hours and stay there. I have found that i can open the lid, remove the dies i need, and then reclose the lid maybe 20 seconds later, and the humidity does not move beyond 7%, then comes down again to the original value. A desiccant pack (plug-in version) seems to last for about 3 or 4 months before it gets to 15%, where i would once again regenerate it. No more issues with rust forming on my dies.
Hope this helps!
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