Do I Need to Store My Equipment Inside?

Got a question from Robert about storing his equipment inside. He has a disk that's stored in a lean-to on an out building and he's noticing that it's getting rust on the blades. Should he be doing something different with it, and his plow, various other tillage tools, and his brush hog?

Most farmers like to store all of their equipment inside in a machine shed. It keeps it away from the elements and makes it look nice and probably last longer. Having said that, most farmers don't have room to store everything inside, and items like disks and other tillage items get relegated to the fencerow.

A disk stored outside will generally develop some rust, but once it gets in the ground, my experience has been that the blades going around in the soil has a natural abrasive effect, and that pretty soon they're somewhat shiny again. So, if you used the disk and finished with it, you could park it on a pallet or timbers to keep it off the ground, then rub some grease around the blades to keep it from developing rust again. But why? If the blades get shined up after some use anyway, would it be worth all of that time? For me the answer is "no", I'm curious what viewers think.

If a brush hog is stored outside over the winter, I think it is wise to remove the PTO shaft and squirt WD-40 between the two halves and store it in the garage. One of the biggest frustrations with cutters stored outside is when surface rust develops and the PTO won't move freely in and out and keeping it inside will prevent that. I'd probably put a five gallon bucket over the gearbox, which is the most expensive part on a bush hog, but it probably won't do much. Gearboxes tend to accumulate a little water from condensation, especially in wet years, making the oil milky. It can happen even if they're stored inside. So, I don't know if my bucket idea is really doing anything, other than making me feel better.

I always like to keep my tractor inside, but they're designed to be just fine either in or out. Eventually, a tractor stored outside will have faded paint, and certain colors are worse than others, but the critical components are covered. I don't think throwing a tarp over them is always good, I've heard horror stories of people doing that with classic cars, only to find the cover did more damage by keeping condensation in, than by preventing rain damage. I'm curious to see what viewers think.

My long term goal is to have a smaller, downsized house, and a machine shed that can be seen from the space shuttle with all of the equipment inside. We'll see if I ever get there.

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