SHED MATTERS 2

[micktoon]

Hi Stanley , I thought your eyes were like brand new again after your surgery ? I hope they have not had any complications. Even if you are not in the shed I am sure you will not be bored

Cheers Mick

[Stanley]

Mick, you evidently missed the detached retina about five weeks ago! I suddenly went totally blind in my right eye. They got me in, welded it back in place and it's improving rapidly. Problem is that as it gets stronger it fights my left eye and as it isn't focussed or lined up the same I have double vision. I'm not whingeing, 50 years ago I'd have been totally blind! It takes months to settle down but as soon as I've seen the surgeon on August 15th I'll get a temporary lens made for me readers to straighten thins up. So, there is hope yet! But be patient...... I am having to be!

[David Whipp]

Given Mick's versatility with repairs, perhaps he could have a go Stanley?

[Bodger]

Should get a few of these in the shed Stanley, verbal controlled.
http://thegoldenagesite.blogspot.ie/200 ... nalia.html

[Stanley]

Imaginative stuff. I like the looms.....

[Stanley]

I got mail from a flute maker in Hereford asking whether I had the missing part of an eccentric chuck which Johnny Pickles had evidently made for the 1956 lathe. I had a good furtle but unfortunately hadn't any joy for him. I found another eccentric chuck that Johnny made for the same lathe but like my enquirer's it was missing the front part!

[micktoon]

Hi Stanley , yes I had missed that info, glad they are managing to sort it out, as you say you will just have to be patient and keep reminding yourself of the fact you would have been blind years ago. I hope it keeps making progress.
Cheers Mick.

[micktoon]

Hi All , In my never ending bid to have a neat and tidy workshop. I have aquired some tooling cabinets but in a quite rough state so decided to give them the once over, as usual this has lead to a bigger job than first expected, here is the progress so far.
The photos are after I have steam cleaned about 30-40-50 years of oily crud off them.

The three cabinets, Grey one far end rough, blue one middle quite rough and the silver one closest not too bad. They are all Versatool cabinets, they seem to go by various names in general. As you can see in the silver cabinet they have swing out shelves, there are boards that fit into the shelf frames with cut outs for collets/ chucks etc, I have shelves and board for all of them. The shelves can also be altered height and gap wise as they fit into the holes on the vertical angle members.




I had got some H/D castors 100KG rating each castor so fitted them to the two tall cabinets, I still need more for the other cabinet, I am trying to get as many things as possible on wheels.




They all have wear and tear issues the worst part being the corners of the blue one, someone has been using the corners as a anvil for removing morse taper tooling probably with a knock out wedge.




The other thing was missing door locking rods and door stays missing to stop the doors opening more than 90 degrees. I got round and flat bar to make replacements.




Forged the ends down



Then bent and shaped the bars to fit.



Seem to do the job ok





Next was the sickening job of paint removal, the grey one had about five layers of old horrible paint, I was going to paint strip it off until I found out the all the nasty chemicals have been removed out of Nitromos paint stripper now so it no longer works. I decided to try a paint scraper with a carbide tip I got from a car boot sale, it worked but was hard work to say the least.





Next job , pieced in and welded up the damaged corners and a few holes that had been drilled in here and there.





Then hours and hours of DA (dual action) sanding to get all the rest of the paint off, Noisy nasy dirty work but I have had too many nasty surprises with old paint reacting over the years so now just do things that hard way and get to metal when I can.





Then filled in any dents and scrapes that were left.



Give them all a sand off and they are ready for primer, well the two tall ones, the smaller silver one is having castors fitted then sanded but this one should just need a good sand off as is in better condition.



I plan to get the last cabinet up to this stage then have a big tidy brush up of all the dust and mess then start painting.
Cheers Mick.

[Whyperion]

I will have to re-find my old emails and try to temp mick down for this.

I suppose officially its a heel-bar finisher, but with things like a wire-brush rotary attachment it could become a pretty mean metal buffing and finishing device.
It takes up half a room, has gas-tap and electric connections, and its either free (collected please)or some kind of donation to the site.

We have only just got the space in front clear enough to move it out from in-situ this week, it would be a four man lift at a guess and cost £264 in 1964.

Looking either to donate to museum somewhere, or offer of some payment (which I'll donate to OGFB)

Weird Hand tool to go too
(Both located near Doncaster, I cannot deliver)
Could probably get what I think is thisA Pedal-Operated Sole Sticher to Leeds/Burnley/M62 area.

[Stanley]

I see the surgeon on Friday Mick and I'm hoping he will OK getting new lens to correct the worst of the imbalance....
Gas tackle is still waiting for you.
When do you start the shed extension?

[micktoon]

Hi Stanley, fingers crossed good news will be had from the surgeon on Friday, I might be passing your way soon Stanley so will call in for cuppa and pick up that gear, I will keep you posted. I have already extended the extension so no more building , just fitting things in better

Whyperion, thanks for the offer but I am at full capacity now, definatley for something the size of the buffer machine, funny enough I had been offered one of these a while back, although it would make a good sanding station they just take up too much room unless you were using it every day. I would put the sole stitcher on Ebay , it seems most leatherwork things go for good prices.

Cheers Mick

[micktoon]

Hi Stanley and All, got a bit more done with the cabinets. Number 3 cabinet has castors fitted, also been stripped and dents knocked out and filled etc, this was the best condition cabinet but some how seemed to take just as long to do as the other two. I had a major job sweeping dust etc up and getting the loose bits of paint debris blown out/ vacuumed out of the cabinets so there will be a chance of half decent finish without lots of bits in the paint.

Anyway here are the three lined up all dusted off , blown out with the air line and ready for primer, the draws are balanced on top of them but can not really be painted in place or balanced on the units in any way so will do them on the floor.





So far so good, all primed inside and out, including the draws. Its not ideal doing all three like this space wise but too much hassle to do them one or two at a time then do it all over again. The draws will have to be laid out better for top coat, the other round thing is an unbreller stand that was looking rusty so hit that with primer too and will do it black with the shelves.





Hopefully after a slight sand tomorrow they will be getting top coat on.

Cheers Mick.

[Stanley]

Looks like the usual standard Mick, better than they were when they were new....
Eye test on a week today..... Roll on!

[micktoon]

Hope all goes well with the eye test Stanley , I will have my fingers crossed for you.
Well the top coat is on.......My mate John will be gutted but its Machine Green not grey , he has everything painted grey in his workshop , I have most shelves , cupboards and quite a few things this green in the workshop so am sticking to it, except for a few machines that should be grey like the Harrison lathe, anyway the world is too grey in general so green is more cheerful and classy :thumbup:

One thing with the green is its a nightmare to get a photo showing what the colour actually looks like, I dont think any of these shots are spot on colour wise and these are the best of the bunch.

All cabinets , lightly sanded, wheels masked off and the floor swept then wet to try to keep the dust down.



I was getting pushed for space really as I was close to the next cabinet when spraying so had to be carefull where I was and also the air line and I use a lamp to shine on the area as the light not too good for spraying, The draws were also a bit dodgy for balance and getting knocked so it was just a case of be careful and keep to the system of working around the items. This is the first light coat of green.



Looking a bit more green after two coats.



This is them after three coats and the draws have dried enough to be carefully balanced back into the cabinets, I had a 5 litre tin of paint and its used 4 litres to do the three cabinets ! , spraying the insides and draws seems to eat the paint but at least they won't rust. The other shots are of the corners that were musroomed over and damaged. Overall they have came out fine , not as good as you would like if it was your classic car pride and joy but they are green and shiny.








I have sprayed the door locking rods silver and got them fitted along with the draw handles , locks etc. I have to work out the best way to do the shelves now , I think I might spray the shelf frames and drill / cut the old wood shelf incerts to fit collets etc then if they work well, I will make some new wood ones. The other thing they need is new plywood tops.

The phtotos here are more like the colour but still not right really they are actually somewhere in between the last shots above and these more bright ones in reality. Things always look better with a few parts put back on too.






I like the tall cabinet with the external top draws the best as it has a more classic look about it, sort of 1950's classic car style maybe.


Cheers Mick.

[Stanley]

Like I said, better than new and up to your usual standards. Compared to you I am a klutz!

[micktoon]

Hi Stanley , a Klutz , no way , its watching the likes of your engines getting built has made me want to do things right
I have moved onto the next stage of the cabinets, the shelves , which looked not bad until I looked harder, various faults on them some needed shims to tighten up the swing out part so it would not drop when opened , general bent edges etc to be knocked out, the two heavier shelves both had the tabs that stop them swinging too far back into the cabinet snapped off so welded some new stronger tabs on them two.

You can see the tab on the thinner shelf at the top of the photo but the wider shelves both had these missing, so I cut two bits of plate to make replacements and welded them on beofre starting to prepare for painting.





Most of shelves were finsihed in black crinkle finish paint that was scraped and flaking off on all the front faces, three of them were silver hammer finish that was also coming off, 13 shelves in total to do( 13 unlucky for some , aye me the mug that had the tedious job of preparing these loll ). I hit the flaking bits with a grinder with soft flap wheel type disc on then went over with a DA sander. Took more doing than you would think as fiddly to hold etc. Eventually they were all clean sanded and de greased.



I was then deciding how to paint them ? due to the frame like nature it was putting me off spraying as too much paint misses the object , you have to keep moving them about etc and lots of mess, I decided to brush some of the areas and then do the rest with small roller. This was a job that you wish you had an apprentice you could get to do. I painted them with two pack primer, so after a good while they looked like this.





I have decided I will spray the black on as could not go through all the brushing again lol thats a job for tomorrow .

Cheers Mick.

[Stanley]

Would it be worth making a temporary plywood spray booth?

[micktoon]

Hi Stanley, I put an old bit of plywood on the floor thurned the air pressure and the fan on the spray gun down and carefully sprayed the shelves black and balanced them against the wall one at a time as they were sprayed , it was not as bad as I had thought and they turned out ok. Photos to follow as I get more done.
Cheers Mick.

[Stanley]

Where did you learn spray painting? I've done enough to know that there is more to it than meets the eye. We once painted a wagon at Marton and finished up with a very handsome and durable orange peel finish!

[micktoon]

Hi Stanley, Just mostly self taught, building cars when I was younger and not having enough money to pay for it to get done, someone gave me a little compressor and an old spray gun and went from there, started at 14 , me and my mate sprayed his dads Nissan pale yellow....what a mess but it had that much paint on it I bet its still on the road now ha ha.

Well I have got the shelves done , I sprayed them with Cellulose satin finish black, I had some , it dries fast and is not too messy. I turned the pressure down and closed the fan pattern up and they were not as bad to do as I thought, still fiddly to turn over etc, anyway this is them painted .





Once dry I have put the shelves back in , mainly so they are not lying about. I have put them back in not spaced out in the final places, I am going to fill one with all the tooling for the bridgeport so will have to see what needs to fit in and then make some wod shelf incerts with fixtures to hold the chucks and collets etc. Any advice or photos of what others have found to work out well are welcome.
This is the cabinets done except for the shelf incerts and the plywood tops.









Cheers Mick

[Stanley]

What can anyone say? As I predicted, better than new and it's no good me telling you how to keep tidy!



Mind you, my VM is the right colour.....

[micktoon]

Hi Stanley , its the only colour to be seen in this or any season..............except maybe grey if your're a Harrison Anymore news with your eye ?
Cheers Mick.

[Stanley]

Eye test today...

[micktoon]

Hi Stanley , first time I have been on the computer for a few days , how did your eye test go then ? . I hope everything was ok and some forward plan is clicking into gear

Cheers Mick.

[Stanley]

As good as can be expected Mick. Double vision is more a product of distortion due to scarring in the right eye and will continue to improve slowly for months. He can give me some correction and so new glasses in ten days should help a bit. (Another £300!). The increasing fog in my left eye is down to a film forming on the back of the implant but that can be scrubbed with a laser by a simple procedure when it reaches a certain stage. Not an operation so not invasive. So, as usual, onward and upwards!