Before you begin. This procedure is general reference information, not professional advice. Equipment varies by manufacturer, model, and year. Always follow the documentation supplied with your equipment — where it differs from this page, follow the manufacturer. Verify that you have the tools, the working conditions, and the ability to do this task safely. If anything is unclear, if the equipment is damaged, or if the task exceeds your experience, stop and use a qualified professional. You are responsible for your own safety and for the outcome. This site accepts no liability for any loss, damage, or injury arising from the use of this information.
Specifications marked unverified could not be traced to a manufacturer source. Do not rely on them — obtain the value from your equipment documentation.
Rust on a hand tool is almost never a failure of the tool. It is water, left on bare steel, in a space that spends half the year damp. The fix is a ten-minute routine at the end of a job — get the dirt off, get the tool completely dry, put a thin film of something on the steel, and store it somewhere that is not the coldest corner of the garage.
The part worth reading carefully is which product goes where. Channellock's published answer is blunt: you can use WD-40 to surface clean pliers, but not to lubricate the joint, because it strips the grease out and makes a tight joint worse — use 3-IN-ONE oil in the joint instead. Leatherman, asked the same question about its own pivots, names a PTFE or Teflon-based lubricant. Those are two manufacturers giving two different answers for the same part of the same kind of tool, and this page does not average them into a house recommendation.
The storage advice comes from a different direction. The National Park Service publishes what it takes to stop steel corroding in a collection store, and the numbers are instructive even though nobody runs a garage that way: it is the relative humidity that matters, cold spaces are worse than warm ones because of condensation, dust holds moisture against the metal, and foam, felt and wool are named as sources of the sulfur that tarnishes metal. That last one is a surprise to most people lining a drawer.
| Item | Note |
|---|---|
| Stiff brush | Use a stiff brush to remove the dry soil. |
| Two clean cloths | Use one cloth for the wash and one cloth for the dry. |
| Eye protection | Wear eye protection when you use a wire brush. |
| Wire brush optional | Use a wire brush on hard soil only. |
| Hygrometer optional | A hygrometer shows the relative humidity in the storage space. |
| Mild detergent material | Leatherman gives a mild solution of detergent and water for its tools. |
| Lubricant for the joints material | The manufacturers do not agree about this lubricant. Use the lubricant for your own tool. |
| Light oil for the steel material | A thin film of oil is a barrier between the steel and the water. |
| Desiccant material | A desiccant decreases the relative humidity in a closed box. |
Estimated 5 min
DO NOT USE A TOOL WITH A CRACKED HANDLE OR A DAMAGED HEAD.
A part of the tool can break and injure you.
Estimated 13 min
No tier-1 source was found for this value. Take it from the documentation supplied with your equipment.
WEAR EYE PROTECTION BEFORE YOU USE A WIRE BRUSH.
A wire from the brush can go into your eye and injure it.
KEEP THE SOLVENT AWAY FROM HEAT AND FROM FLAME.
Mineral spirits can catch fire and burn you.
DO NOT USE ACETONE OR BRAKE CLEANER ON A TOOL WITH PLASTIC PARTS.
Leatherman says that these solvents can cause damage to plastic components.
HOLD A BLADE OR A CHISEL BY THE HANDLE ONLY.
The edge is sharp and can cut your hand.
Estimated 8 min to 1 hr 3 min
Estimated 8 min
No tier-1 source was found for this value. Take it from the documentation supplied with your equipment.
DRY THE TOOL COMPLETELY BEFORE YOU APPLY THE OIL.
Water below an oil film continues to make corrosion.
Estimated 17 min
No tier-1 source was found for this value. Take it from the documentation supplied with your equipment.
REMOVE THE DUST FROM THE TOOL BEFORE YOU STORE IT.
A layer of dust on the metal holds water.
This page uses one term for each item and holds it throughout, as ASD-STE100 requires. Equipment sellers and other guides use the names below for the same parts.
Do not use a tool with a crack in the handle. Do not use a striking tool with damage at the head. Speak to the manufacturer about a repair, or discard the tool.
Do not do work on a torque instrument. Only a calibration service must do work on a torque instrument.
Do not put a solvent on a tool that the documentation for that tool does not name. Leatherman gives a warning that some solvents cause damage to plastic parts.
Stop if a tool has deep corrosion in the steel below the surface. Deep corrosion makes the tool weaker. Speak to the manufacturer.
Not into the joints, according to the people who make the pliers. Channellock's published position is that WD-40 is fine for surface cleaning a pair of pliers, but it does not recommend it for lubricating the joint, because it can strip the grease out and make a stiff joint worse. Its recommendation for the joints and channels is 3-IN-ONE oil after cleaning. So the answer is not that the product is bad, it is that the job you are using it for matters: outside surface yes, inside the joint no. Leatherman, for its own pivots, names something different again.
Whatever your own manufacturer names, and the two we read do not agree. Channellock says 3-IN-ONE oil in the joints and channels. Leatherman says a PTFE or Teflon-based lubricant for pivoting and wear areas on its multi-tools. Both are tier-one manufacturer answers about their own products, and a penetrating fluid, a thin general-purpose oil and a dry PTFE film genuinely behave differently in a pivot. We are not going to split the difference, because there is no product halfway between them.
Cold is the reason, but not directly. The National Park Service, writing about keeping metal collections from corroding, points out that low temperatures usually produce higher relative humidity and the possibility of condensation on metal surfaces. A cold steel tool in an unheated garage on a mild damp morning is below the dew point, so water forms on it, and that is what rusts it. Moving the box off the coldest outside wall, or into the house, changes more than any coating will.
It may be worse than you think, and this is the least intuitive thing on the page. The National Park Service names sulfur and sulfur compounds as probably the strongest tarnishing agents for metals, and lists foam rubber, carpet padding, paints, wool and felt among the products that generate it. That guidance is written for museum stores rather than for a tool chest, and a lined drawer has real advantages for organisation and protection. But if tools in one particular lined drawer keep coming out dull while the same tools elsewhere do not, the lining is a reasonable suspect.
There is no domestic number to give you, and we would rather say that than invent one. The only figures we found come from the National Park Service and they are museum figures: keep relative humidity as low as possible, steels will not rust below 15% RH, and in salt air keep it no greater than 35% RH. Nobody runs a garage at 15% RH and the Park Service says as much itself. Use the principle rather than the number — a cheap hygrometer plus a desiccant in a closed box will tell you more about your own space than any published figure will.
Yes, and stainless is a description rather than a promise. Leatherman's own maintenance guidance is that its tools should be cleaned, dried and re-lubricated periodically to inhibit rust and corrosion, and it gives a specific instruction for salt water exposure: rinse in fresh water, dry, and lubricate with a light oil. Stainless resists corrosion; it does not refuse it, particularly in a pivot where the alloy is under stress and water sits.
That is a different job from this one and this page does not cover it, because none of the manufacturers we read publishes a home rust-removal method for their tools. What the National Park Service does say, and it is worth carrying over, is that cleaning and polishing remove original metal — so an aggressive attack on light surface rust costs you material you cannot put back. Ask your own manufacturer before you take an abrasive to a plated or precision surface. If the corrosion is deep rather than a surface bloom, the tool's strength is the question, not its looks.
The employer's, in the United States, and it does not matter who bought it. OSHA 1910.242(a) states that each employer is responsible for the safe condition of tools and equipment used by employees, including tools and equipment furnished by the employees themselves. So a personal tool brought onto a job site is still in scope. That is the reason the first section here is inspection and not cleaning: a tool that is not in safe condition does not get cleaned and put back, it gets repaired or retired.
No related procedure is published yet. This section fills as the repository grows.
Every specification on this page is traced to one of these sources. Tier 1 is a manufacturer document, a published standard, or a government safety authority. See Standards for the full tiering rule.
Current version 1 · updated 2026-07-29 · next review due 2027-07-29
Corrections to this page are listed in the public corrections log. Reports that are credible and not yet verified are listed in the public errata register, and an open one renders above the step it concerns.
Found an error? A correction with a manufacturer source is applied and logged publicly. You can also write to corrections@fixchecklist.com.
Every step above carries its own report control, which tags the report with that step so a correction reaches the right place. For anything about the procedure as a whole — the order of the sections, a step that is missing, something that did not match your equipment — use this: report something about this whole procedure.