Saturday, February 25, 2012

Plugging Holes

The last step before removing all of Ms. Rusty’s paint by bead blasting is to protect threaded and machined areas.  I’m choosing to use heat resistant tape and silicone plugs so they can stay in place during the powder coating step, which requires Ms. Rusty to bake in an oven at high temps to cure.

The flat areas are best covered by the heat resistant tape, as shown in the photo below.

Using Tape

One particular area that was tough to cover was the exposed surface in the bobbin area.

Exposed hole

To cover this I cut a piece of tape larger than the area to be covered and placed in over the hole.

TapeBefore cutting

Then using an Exacto knife, the excess tape is cut away

 excess cutfinished covered hole

All other flat/rounded areas were covered in this way  finished area with tape

Plugging holes was relatively easy using the variety of plugs I recently purchased (see previous post).  I used the caps to fill in longer holes like the one shown here: 

Tube used

However, some longer holes were an odd size and instead required the use of two plugs.  This next photo shows how one plug was the right size in diameter, but wasn’t long enough to completely fill the hole.

One plugOne not enough

So I took two identical plugs and cut them in half so I had two shorter plugs of the same diameter.

Cutting plugcut plug

The two shorter plugs covered both ends and protected the interior from bead blasting & coating.  two plugs

For added protection, I covered/plugged several of the interior holes. I’m not sure these will be actually exposed to sand blasting or powder, but I figure it’s better to be safe than sorry.

Photo inside of arm: Inside Arm

For those of you interested, here are 12 photos of Ms. Rusty from multiple angles so you can see what holes were plugged and/or covered.

needle area pluggedfront pluggedmotor end pluggedBack pluggedtop pluggedback of arm pluggedinside needle area pluggedbobbin area topbobbin end pluggedbobbin area pluggedplugged bottom 2plugged bottom

Top on my agenda for tomorrow – blast and coat Ms. Rusty!!

3 comments:

  1. Can't wait to see the finished product. I've been working on some of my machines, but, only cleaning and oiling and minor tension adjustments. I did paint over the ugly decals on the Chinese repro hand cranks I've been installing. Cheap paintbrush and black model paint. Nothing like what Ms. Rusty is getting.

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  2. After all the work on Ms. Rusty, I'm looking forward to only cleaning and oiling some of my other machines :)

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  3. Wow. Such attention to detail. I am fascinated by the process. I re-wired a 201 motor and I will NEVER sell that machine. I put too much work into it and I love it all the more just for that reason. However, I have three other 201s which will require similar re-wiring; out the door they go as soon as I can. I am sure your machine will become a family heirloom. Priceless

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