rust prevention

I wouldn't use the mineral oil/bees wax mix. It's made to soak into wood and would probably be pretty sloppy on the non-porous metal.

My shop is in a metal machine shed with a dirt floor so I'm in a similar situation. I used to use Johnson's paste wax and it was ok, but it needed to be re-applied quite often during heavy use.

A while back, there was a discussion here about waxes and Firemedic (I think) recommended Renaissance Wax for planes (both wooden and metal). I picked up some several months ago and started using in on all my planes, saws, and anything else with metal that might rust.

I am very happy with it - it lasts a lot longer during heavy use (friction reduction) and after this extremely wet, rainy spring, I've not had any problems with rust. Using other paste waxes, I was constantly having to reapply and still ended up with rust if I hadn't used a tool for a couple of weeks.

It is expensive, but a little goes a very long way. After multiple applications to 8 saws and 4 planes, you can hardly tell that any has been used. I figure the little jar (200ml) will last me about 5 years.

And excerpt from
http://creoleproject.blogspot.com/p/cleaning-restoring-and-preserving.html


Protecting
Once your tool has been cleaned and repaired, it time to protect it. There is only one thing I recommend for protecting wooden tools - Renaissance Wax. It is a micro crystalline wax that works tremendously well for protecting wood while not having any harmful effects. I have been told there are some generic waxes out there, usually going under the general name of museum wax - I have not evaluated these so I can not say whether they work as well or are as safe.

Renaissance Wax last a reasonably long time even with use. How often it must be applied depends upon use and climate. It will have a mild cleaning effect when rubbed on and you can expect to find that some surface contaminants will be lifted and imparted on the rag used to apply it - this is OK. Apply the wax with a soft clean rag and allow to dry prior to buffing out. This wax can also be applied to metal parts.
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That's obviously more intended for wooden tools but it does extend to metal tools as well. The wax does work well.

For tool lubrication I've been using mutton tallow - I do still want to do test on a blend of tallow and beeswax though as I think it may perform even better.