I use plastic tarpaulins that you get from the Pound Shop.

Regards Luigi

Garden centres sell fabric/plastic covers for outdoor chairs, barbeques etc which will fit over a lathe or milling machine. I have used one to cover my milling machine for over seven years – no rust but the plastic eventually starts to rub off.

JA

I'm never comfortable leaving oily rags and tissues lying about. You might think it's a bit far fetched but in some circumstances they can self combust without the need for a flame or spark. I don't think it's clear what conditions are needed for this to happen but it's clearly a risk, not folklore. If you Google something like "spontaneous combustion oily rag" you can see there is some basis for the notion.

Never had a problem with it myself but I try to keep old oily rags and tissues in a steel bin away from other flammable stuff. I don't want to discover the right combination of constituents!

Murray

Good advice Murray. I never leave oily cloths or rags around either. Spontaneous combustion is much more common than people think. A lot of people are blissfully unaware of it. It's generally caused when they are stuffed into bins or left in piles though. Believe it or not even wet towels stuffed into laundry bags can spontaneously combust. It's a recognised cause of fires in ship's laundries. Best to always empty your workshop bins very regularly and keep steel lids on steel bins. Oily swarf and oily rags in a bin is a fire waiting to happen. Anyway, apologies Adrian, I'm digressing from your original topic …

This is one of those topics that keeps coming up and often has contrary views.

Plastic sweats – have you never seen those survival programs about about being in the middle of the sahara and catching condensate on the inside of a plastic tent.
Cotton sheets or wool blankets are the answer streatched to make minimal contact and perhaps using bamboo canes as stand offs. It creates a warmer microclimate owing to the thermal mass of the machine yet 'breathes'. condensate on the fibre is absorbed rather than running down as on a plastic sheet to pool at the points of contact.

The rags thing has just been covered on another forum – have you all been reading that paranoia?

I use self-regulating heaters available from RS Components, and probably others. Also, when not in use for long periods, I cover the lathe and mill with a cloth type material and then plastic.

The heaters, though, have proven to be by far and away the best as even through the deepest cold, the machines are kept slightly warm, sufficient to prevent condensation and hence rust.

The downside of course, is that they consume small amounts of electricity, but at less than 100W total for both machines, I'm not unduly worried.

Peter G. Shaw