Sometimes the tool is the project

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Michael Mathews

Michael
Corporate Member
another option is ask the blast company who they use for powdercoating. I'll bet you can have them blast it and deliver it to powder coat without even touching it. If you do this, take the smaller parts to the blaster also, even if they won't be blasting them. the powder coater can do the small parts too,.
 

Chemeleon

Administrator
Matt
This one definitely works out to a good deal - by the time I'm done, I'll have spent less than I would have on grizzly's new lathe, and have one with the same or larger capacity and 3 times the mass, along with about 50% longer tailstock quill travel.

My goal with the paint is to get it basically as shiny and smooth as a well polished car; depending on the paint I go with, I'll likely do a clear coat if its available. I considered powder coating, but I've never seen it reach that level of shine before, not sure its possible, though the durability would be nice. I figure once its cleaned to bare metal, I'll do a very thin coat of bondo and sand again to smooth out the pebbly texture of cast iron as much as possible. Same reason I'm wanting to get it blasted instead of scrape - make sure there aren't lines under the new paint from the old layers, even if they aren't loose anymore.

Scott, do you know what sort of time frame that practice happened during? While this is an old design, its a relatively "new" build, from 1963. The couple spots with bare metal visible look to just be bare metal, but could be any other coating already wore off in those areas like the paint did.
 

Roy G

Roy
Senior User
Matt, if you go over to the OWWM site, you can find a lot of information. I have seen references to the castings being rougher on older Oliver machines. You have a fine lathe there. Hope you got some accessories with it.

Roy G
 

striker

New User
Stephen
Powder coating involves baking in a 385degree oven. Among other problems, the castings will degas and likely ruin the finish.
 

Chemeleon

Administrator
Matt
It didn't come with the accessories beyond the carriage, so I'll have to make a new banjo for it. But the seller said he'll try to find them, and if he does they'll be free. He also finds stuff like this regularly, so I suspect he may come across the accessories from other machines eventually. Other than the banjo, it'd be nice to have some of the big face plates for outboard turning and a couple tools for the carriage, but I can make that sort of thing if need be, just drops the value a bit if I ever resell it.

Good point on the temperature striker, that pretty much kills the powdercoat idea for me - not as good a finish, plus the risk of causing issues with the cast iron.
 

KenOfCary

Ken
Staff member
Corporate Member
Too bad you're not closer. My next door neighbor could do the sand-blasting and re-painting for a really good price for you. He is always restoring farm machinery, cars and such. Like those John Deere Ice Cream machines you see at the state fair. They come out super glossy. I see him working on this kind of stuff in his garage shop for other people all the time.

I take all my small engine and farm machinery to him for routine maintenance and repair.
 

Weekendworrior

New User
Bill
The machine is in great shape from looking at the pics. I don't see a reason for sand-blasting...........especially when sand-blasting is a thing of the past in restoration work. I see some chemical strippers and elbow grease. If blasting is a must, glass bead, soda, or walnut shell blasting is as abrasive as I would go.
 

Chemeleon

Administrator
Matt
Yep - when I say "sandblasting" I mean the concept as a whole, not literally using sand. I'd looked into using soda and a home sized blaster, but based on the numbers I could find for square inches removed per pound of media, I was looking at $500+ just in soda media. I figure a proper shop with a blasting room (or whatever the right term is for something that big) can hit everything with a reusable media for a lot less and a lot faster than I can here at home.

I've had very mixed results with various stripping chemicals in the past, and just would rather not deal with their nastiness, but its one of my potential fallbacks if the blasting doesn't pan out.
 

Chemeleon

Administrator
Matt
Hadn't done much on it while I was trying to get estimates on having it blasted. So far, only managed to get one estimate back, and it was *way* beyond what I could justify ($700ish), so I've pretty much given up on that route, and started stripping and wire wheeling it this weekend between other projects. I'd say a heavy coat of paint stripper followed by a cup wheel on the angle grinder is getting it to probably around 90% clean, and whats left is solidly attached with no raised edges, so should work just fine for painting it up. There's definitely some sort of filler in spots, but to me it looks like its probably just bondo or something very similar. Has that slightly greyish white color, and is quite hard.

strippedLeg1.jpg

I've also had the rack that the carriage moves along sitting in evaporust in a pvc pipe for a week or so now. A day or two would have been sufficient, I just didn't get around to taking it back out until today. Seems I forgot to take a before picture, but it was your typical solid dark brown, slightly crusty piece of rusted up metal. And now, straight out of evaporust:
rack.jpg
Might as well be a brand new piece of steel :)
 

Mark Gottesman

New User
Mark
Looks good. I have not used it, but Rustoleum makes a High solids primer that should make a good base coat for a flat finish. I sure this along with body filler will give you a great paint surface.
 

Gotcha6

Dennis
Staff member
Corporate Member
A flap disc grinding wheel will also do great at removing paint. I hope you are using some respiratory and eye protection with all this.
 

Chemeleon

Administrator
Matt
Yep, definitely wearing safety gear - gloves, goggles, respirator. This is old enough (1963) I'm sure there's some nasty stuff in the paint, not to mention the stripper goop. Thinking next weekend I'll borrow a pressure washer and see if that'll work to strip everything off after the stripper has had time to work; probably pick up one of those cheap painting coveralls for that since I'm sure gunk would go every which way.

I wondered whether flap sanders would work better than the wire cup, but I was concerned they might be more likely to reshape metal than the wire would be, so decided to play it safe.
 

Mark Gottesman

New User
Mark
I've never used one, but the folks over at OWWM speak highly of using a "needle scaler". they even seem to think the HF version will do. Seems to work well on uneven surfaces. You just need enough air compressor to run one. Heavy duty wire wheels will, in fact, smear metal causing a textured surface. You can minimize this by getting softer wire on the wheels, but then they do not cut as quickly. Flap wheel discs that have the overlapping grit sheets need a light hand to just clean the surface and not cut into it.

It is sort of late in the game, but is there a local community college with an autobody shop. Might be able to get a quick sandblast done there.
 

Hmerkle

Board of Directors, Development Director
Hank
Staff member
Corporate Member
Matt,
Mark's last post just made me think of it - could you rent a sandblaster / compressor (if necessary) from a rental place to get the job done?
 

Chemeleon

Administrator
Matt
Looks like renting a soda blaster is $250ish per day + the media (which at my rough estimate was going to be $500ish). My big compressor would probably handle it ok if I brought it down here but that price is still way up there, so I'm just going to stick with chemical strippers at this point. Going to bring the power washer over sometime this weekend I hope, and see how that does compared to the wire brush after the goop is applied.

I've been looking for a big old long arm buffer/polisher, but haven't had any luck finding one both nearby AND at a low enough price to tempt me, so gave up and grabbed the little HF 6" buffer. Actually runs surprisingly smoothly, but idle and in use. The only downside I've come across so far, is HF doesnt sell 6" buffing wheels with a 1/2" arbor, so guess I'll have to order more of them. Did a quick test on one of the handles from a hand wheel. First picture is just after I started to hit it with 220 grit paper (it was an even dull gray before), then did 1200, brown compound, and then white. I've also got some gray, green and blue to play around with once I have more wheels. Its pretty close to mirror already, but want to see if I cant push it just that little bit further :).

knob.jpg
polishedKnob.jpg
 

Chemeleon

Administrator
Matt
Hit the handwheel that knob goes with today as well. Couldn't get it to polish up to *quite* as mirrored of a finish, presumably because of cast iron vs whatever that knob is, but its still loads better than the brown rusty wheel it started as. I'll probably give it a clean up pass once I've stripped the paint and sprayed it, but for now calling it done.

Just after coming out of the evaporust:
handwheel1.jpg

150 grit sandpaper, held on with a bolt wrapped in paper to make it the right diameter:
handwheel2.jpg

1200 grit wet sanded
handwheel3.jpg

And finally polished as well as I could:
handwheel4.jpg
 

Hmerkle

Board of Directors, Development Director
Hank
Staff member
Corporate Member
Looks good Matt!
More time consuming, but I think you are going to get there!

I think the handwheel is cast iron and the knob is aluminum... maybe?
 

Chemeleon

Administrator
Matt
Now that you mention it, I'm not sure. I'd assumed just some other type of steel given the heft to it, but it was just corroded/oxidized looking rather than rusted like the rest of the steel parts; aluminum would explain that. Guess I'll need to find a magnet to check. If aluminum polishes up this easily, I'm going to be doing a lot more polishing on any future CNCs I build I guess :)
 
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