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Re: Building a shop

Posted: Fri Sep 07, 2018 5:21 am
by Chris Hall
Cool! What lead you to decide upon that particular extraction unit?

Re: Building a shop

Posted: Fri Sep 07, 2018 11:59 pm
by John Whitley
Chris Hall wrote:
Fri Sep 07, 2018 5:21 am
Cool! What lead you to decide upon that particular extraction unit?
A combination of 1) trying to get a solution that would fit in my low-ceilinged shop space and 2) keep noise levels acceptable. Ultimately, if I had a higher ceiling I could have shoved a cyclone in an enclosure and been done with it. However, cyclones turned out to be problematic to fit without serious compromises (e.g. very short collection bin, etc.). I investigated building an external, attached enclosure for a cyclone, but to get it placed reasonably would have been very expensive (some excavation plus a concrete pad). It turned out to be cheaper to go with the RL than go the external route. From there, it was mostly a matter of duct planning and messing with spreadsheets to size the unit.

Re: Building a shop

Posted: Fri Sep 14, 2018 8:41 pm
by Matt J
[Matt hits like button]

Re: Building a shop

Posted: Tue Oct 02, 2018 11:52 pm
by John Whitley
Well, wow. I'll post some photos later, but a bit of the remodel work took a dark turn: high winds combined with rain breached the tarping covering the (removed) shop roof, and dumped water onto my planer and jointer. The cast iron tables now have significant surface rust. That's easy enough to treat; a quick spot test with some Boeshield Rust Free made quick work of it. There doesn't appear to be any pitting, but there are cosmetic impacts to the tables. I'm not sure how/whether that can be remedied. I'll need to evaluate whether the mechanical parts took any water damage, but a preliminary inspection seems promising -- I'm hopeful that most important parts were protected.

Re: Building a shop

Posted: Wed Oct 03, 2018 7:28 am
by Chris Hall
That sucks. I hope it all comes out as well as possible.

Re: Building a shop

Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2018 2:25 pm
by John Whitley
I’ve done a bit of footwork, and the current approach I’m going to test for remediating the tables is:
  • Treat with Boeshield Rust Free for initial rust removal
  • Clean thoroughly with mineral spirits to remove any remaining wax and/or T-9
  • Use a sandflex fine block to polish the surface, switching to medium for any really tough spots
  • Immediately reapply T-9 base and paste wax
We’ll see how it goes. One way or another, I’ll avoid going overboard with the sandflex blocks. I’ll take “ugly” over “wavy” cast iron tales. The shop has a big dehumidifier in it, which helped enormously in quickly drying everything out, beyond manual efforts, fans, etc.

Re: Building a shop

Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2018 9:47 pm
by Chris Hall
I'm interested to see how your results come out. Repairing stains in cast iron seems a tricky matter.

Re: Building a shop

Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2018 11:53 pm
by Brian
Rather than sanding you can use a mild scotchbright.

I wouldn’t sand them under any circumstance, I worked at an automotive machine shop as a youth I can tell you for certain you will do more damage than good.

Practically every surface than someone buzzed clean required resurfacing on a machine.

Stand a razor on edge and scrape any loose rust. Scotchbright lightly by hand then wax.

Re: Building a shop

Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2018 8:20 pm
by John Whitley
Thanks for the advice Brian. I have a whole box of white scotchbrite on hand, so I’ll use that to test. It’s a “nice to have” if I can clean up the tables’ appearance, but far less important than their functional role.

Re: Building a shop

Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2018 9:31 pm
by Gary Radice
I'll mostly echo Brian's advice. My shop is equipped with old machines I've rescued and restored. To clean tables I've used both Scotchbrite and higher grits of sandpaper (like 400 and above) by hand and with random orbital sanders. Both have worked fine for me. If some pitting or staining on the tables remain, so be it. If the tables are flat they will work fine, or maybe even better since there will less metal surface in contact with wood. The wood may slide better that way. Think about the ridges on machined planed surfaces. I would not risk using a belt sander or any sandpaper grit below 220. Bad things can happen too fast that way.