Titivating a Wire EDM Machine

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awemawson:
Thanks for the comments NRML

I've managed to locate some stripper with Dimethyl-chloride as it's base, and that is expected on Tuesday. Meanwhile this morning I succeeded in glass blasting all the panels that needed stripping, and got a coat of etch primer on them outside as the weather stayed fine.

No pictures as my iPhone decided it's battery was flat despite telling me it was 100% only two hours before - nothing to do with 'upgrading' to ios 8.1 yesterday I'm sure :scratch:

One of the panels that I made a few years back, the one with a rectangular tunnel in it to give access to the water flow gauges, I had given a coat of primer to back then from a rattle can. Forgot that and sprayed it with my etch primer and of course it reacted and gave crows feet every where. Ended up using paint stripper (B&Q ultra safe ultra useless) which as it was only fresh came off ok'sh . Re-sprayed and it along with the other nine panels will get a coat of semi gloss tomorrow.

awemawson:
So today I got a coat of top coat on both sides of all the panels and two on the outsides. If you look at the first picture and see the nettle bed behind the panels you'll see we had an early frost - no actually it's fine glass grit from the blasting yesterday. First rain'll wash it off.

Oddly the 'grey' etch primer is distinctly green :scratch:

awemawson:
With rain threatening, and the paint having hardened significantly I decided to bring all the panels indoors to fully harden off for a few days whilst I attacked the main carcass of the machine.

I'm waiting for some decent paint stripper to arrive, but I thought I'd see what a hot air gun could do on those bits where it's safe to do so. Painfully slow :bang: The metal takes the heat away too soon. So I brought out Big Bertha the Blow Lamp. Now it's not appropriate to use this everywhere due to the proximity of wires etc, but a lot of the surface area can be cleared. It worked a treat. Took about 20 minutes to do the bit that you see in the picture. The horizontal surface was far easier than the vertical, and I'm sure it's that over the years water got under the original paint as it just stood there - it looks a bit rusty - probably cleaned up somewhat when the previous owner brush painted it. It'll need a bit of rubbing down and primering but it's quite pleasing progress.

awemawson:
This morning I managed to finish stripping off the vast majority of the paint on the machine carcass horizontal surface using the blow lamp. Still to remove the 'kerbs' to allow me to strip up to the edges. Still to use chemical stripper on some fiddly bits and also the edge of the work area 'tray', which is stainless steel, so if it cleans up ok I won't paint it.

The surface has obviously previously been stripped back where the rust shows but needs quite a bit of preparation prior to painting. I may risk a 'strip and clean' disk now 99% of the material has been removed as hopefully it won't make too much mess with the little that remains.

I remembered that yonks ago I had bought a 'touch up' spray gun for a project that never happened, and I've never used it. I'm going to experiment and see if it is feasible to use it without stuff going every where as a sprayed finish is very much preferable to a rollered one.

Then it was time to go to town and sort my iPhone 4S out. Upgrading to ios 8.1 had resulted in it's wifi refusing to work even after a 'factory reset' :bang: After much faffing about I now have an iPhone 6 - an exasperating experience

awemawson:
Today I made a great discovery :ddb:

I had thought that the top that I've been stripping was part of a welded structure forming the machine carcass. As I was working out how to fix masking for spraying, I got to wondering how the heck they put the machine together in the first place :scratch: Surely it MUST have been built from the bottom up ? The top MUST come off. Sure enough I found 8 concealed screws.

Huge benefit in that being able to remove the top meant no masking, and I could glass blast it to get it decently clean. Down side was that quite a bit else had to come off. The 'curtain tracks', the arm, and the work tray. Actually only took 20 minutes as I've had them all off before.

Net result is I've been able to properly clean up the metal work (including a 'water inlet panel' that I'd passed over last time.)

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