There is a product called BOESHIELD T-9 which actually does, reportedly, work for this. It was suggested in some thread years ago and I got a can, it appears to work well enough keeping rust creep off my ancient drill press table.

Great to see Boeshield in this thread - so much of what's happening in this thread is the wrong product for a particular application. As you point out, Boeshield is a great product for protecting cast iron

Boeshield has a tendency to increase friction though unless buffed really hard.

Lanolin based coatings (fluid film, et al) don't have this issue.

Of course, i live in a super-humid place these days, so i have to control humidity anyway. This doesn't stop rust, but it means i can worry a lot less about which coatings and how often.

My stepdad was a drywall finisher, those crews washed the drywall off their tools with water, then got the water off (prevented rust) with WD40.

Difference being, they applied it every day, and specifically to prevent rust because the tools were wet. But man did they love it. Went through a couple cans per week I bet.

I think that Project Farm did a video on rust prevention formulations. I don't remember how WD-40 fared.