Found mold in shop......can tools be saved?

Tom Baugues

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Lafayette, Indiana
My father has a small shop 25 x 12 that sits in the back portion of his property that when it floods real bad, water can and has sometimes gotten up to just under the floor. He has had two "hundred year floods" in the past 5 years. About 20 years ago I tore the old plywood floor out of this old shed and replaced the floor joists and plywood floor with all treated material. The walls of the shop are not treated. Anyway...my father has not used his shop in the past couple years due to health related issues. I've been talking with my father about using his jointer and planer in his shop at his home. Today he called me to tell me that he went out to the shop and has found mold growing pretty bad on the walls. He fears that it is to a point that it is not healthy to be out there. He has told me to come get any machines that I want and to help him remove everything else to maybe sell.
My question is.....can mold get into and onto the equipment making them un-cleanable and unusable? I know that if it's in the wood it will continue to grow but I'm assuming that if it's on metal...it can be cleaned. My dad is pretty upset that he found the shop in this condition but knows that it's time to get rid of everything before it's a total loss.

I'm going tomorrow night to take a look at the problem and try to come with a timeline to start clearing things out.
I'm also guessing that any wood he has stored in there should probably be destroyed.
 
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I'm also guessing that any wood he has stored in there should probably be destroyed.

Why? Just clean it, like you would with his woodworking equipment. You just need to remove it from the surface. Just be careful to take the necessary precautions. Where I live, if we destroyed all the wood with mold on it, it would look like Death Valley around here.
 
another vote for just cleaning it,, and the wood mold wont grow if you take it out of the moist environment.. the only trouble that you have is with the structure tom not the stuff in it..
 
Nah there are mold spores everywhere, if transporting a couple locally caused a problem you already had a problem. Cleaning is the answer. I wouldn't bleach any of the tools though, just the wood; bleach and metal don't get along real well, causes pitting. I'd just clean them off real well with your normal cleaning routine.

Do do the cleaning in a well ventilated area (possibly with a respirator), some of the molds put out some nasties when killed and scrubbing them can send molds airborn and none are good to breath..

My only other caveat is be careful cutting any of the wood that's had mold growing in it as cutting it could also aerosolized the spores which would be bad to breath. Proper dust collection plus ventilation though and you're fine. Spalted woods and "blue" pine are examples of woods with build in mold issues :D
 
Spalted woods and "blue" pine are examples of woods with build in mold issues :D

I did not know that. I actually bought some pine boards from Menards a while back that have a weird "blue" color to them. I thought it looked cool so I picked though the pile and picked out all I could find. I thought it would make a great looking project someday.
 
I did not know that. I actually bought some pine boards from Menards a while back that have a weird "blue" color to them. I thought it looked cool so I picked though the pile and picked out all I could find. I thought it would make a great looking project someday.

Fungus/Mold... They're all Fun Guys... :rofl:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_stain_fungus

You see a lot of it in stands that were harvested after bug kill has moved through. It is pretty and if not allowed to go to far before the tree is cut and dried doesn't significantly harm the wood (similar to spalting it can get punky if left to long or stored wet and the fungus re-activates).
 
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