1949 Delta/Milwaukee 14" Band Saw

Gallery, Projects and General > Project Logs

<< < (3/12) > >>

Divided he ad:

--- Quote ---One of the nice things about having multiple income streams is the ability to refuse work that does not interest me or that I do not have confidence in. Basically I adopted a philosophy of "It ain't fun, I ain't doing it!" or to quote an acquaintance "Life is too short to struggle needlessly."
--- End quote ---
Well I would say lucky man, but it's quite clear you have worked your way upto this result so instead I'll say I envy your position :)

The saw is looking good enough from here, I'm 4ft from the monitor ;)

Keep us up to date,

Ralph.

Rog02:
In today's installment of "As The Nut Turns":

I mentioned using a vibratory and walnut hull to clean hardware in an earlier post. I have a couple of small vibratory cleaners (commonly used to clean ammunition brass before reloading) that I picked up at an estate sale for a couple of dollars each. One is filled with "plastic media" and the other one is filled with walnut hull. I use these for cleaning small carburetor parts and other small trim parts around the shop. The abrasive media is available from Harbor Freight. "Plastic Media" is small pyramids of some type of resin with a fine abrasive mixed in that is used for corrosion and to de-burr parts. You need to use water with the plastic media similar to wet sanding. The walnut hull cleans and polishes surface patina. Walnut hull needs to be kept dry.

For those in the UK you might look around some lapidary supply places for the small vibrators. The rolling tumbler polishers will work as well but I have heard from some silversmiths that extremely delicate parts can be damaged if too little abrasive is used.

Before and after examples of parts cleaned in the vibrator.

These small parts are the table trunnion castings and the blade tension adjuster. The parts are die cast Zamack (a zinc/aluminum alloy) and the original paint was peeling off due to the lack of surface prep. I simply wire brushed the old paint off, masked off any moving surfaces and degree scale then prepped with an ultra fine Scotch Brite pad (gray pad).

Here is a trick! I keep a package of bamboo skewers around the shop to use as painting and hand polishing sticks. The idea is to tape one to the part and use it to handle the part while airbrushing then sticking the skewer in a bucket of sand to let the paint dry. For parts that have no masking to tape to, I wrap several turns of masking tape around the skewer and then thread it into a bolt hole. I find that by taping small parts to the skewers I have better control than by hanging them up and having them blow around. I hate trying to paint moving targets.

In case you are wondering why the silver paint in the photo, it is the under coat of a two coat urethane process. The top coat is a tinted clear that will flash off leaving a silver gray finish that should wear well.

Rog02:
In this episode of "As The Nut Turns"

This past weekend was the NASCAR race at Kansas so I did not get to spend any time working on the band saw. I was pretty much occupied Thursday through Sunday morning with customers and suppliers that were in town for the race. The food was good, but after Saturdays race I was ready to get back to the shop. I went to a hospitality event Sunday morning and then came home and watched Sundays race on TV.
Next weekend promises to be busy as well, as a large machine shop is auctioning off their inventory and the "Muscle Car Reunion" is at the old KCIR Dragway.

The table trunnions, blade tension/tracking adjuster, and blade guide assemblies, refinished and ready to be re-installed.

Mr. Bump from the Inspection Dept. gives his final approval to the hardware card. :thumbup:

With any luck I will get a full day work on the saw this week. I haven't had a chance to re-coat the stand parts yet and haven't done anything to the frame castings.

Brass_Machine:
I have an 'el cheapo' tumbler that I picked up from Harbor Freight. I use both the walnut shells and the resin media. Gotta say for a cheap purchase I am very pleased with the results. Instead of wasting time with the blast cabinet I can do other work while it is spinning away. I haven't put any delicate parts in it yet so i can neither confirm nor deny how it does with those.

Eric

Rog02:

--- Quote from: Brass_Machine on September 29, 2008, 11:54:33 AM ---I have an 'el cheapo' tumbler that I picked up from Harbor Freight. I use both the walnut shells and the resin media. Gotta say for a cheap purchase I am very pleased with the results. Instead of wasting time with the blast cabinet I can do other work while it is spinning away. I haven't put any delicate parts in it yet so i can neither confirm nor deny how it does with those.

Eric

--- End quote ---

I think the part she was talking about was a small pierced piece. She was hand filing a similar piece when I was there.

You're right about letting them run while you do other things. I normally set it up first thing in the morning and check it at lunch time. They are kind of slow but the results are so nice, it is worth the wait! The other advantage to media blast is that tumbling or vibrating doesn't foul any of the small passages in carb parts.

Navigation

 Message Index

Go to full version