Sheet Metal Fabrication Options?

[Noel Chiappa]

    > From: Jay West

    > A couple items in my holdings have rust ... The only good solution I
    > could see is having the existing metalwork sandblasted and then
    > repainted. I've not checked, but I suspect that's "non-trivial-$".
    > Thoughts?

Iff you have access to an air compressor, small sandblast units can be had at
Harbour Freight for less than $50. If you don't have a compressor... well,
that's considerably more money, but I find a compressor is a very useful
thing to have.

I feed our sandblast unit (one of the HF ones) with playground sand, a couple
of $ per bag, which I feed through a sieve made of 4 pieces of scrap wood
(frame) and some plastic door/window screen. (If you don't sieve it, the
cheapo play sand has larger bits in it which tend to jam the nozzle.) And the
sieve allows me to be _really_ cheap and sweep up the sand and recycle it.

I refinished an H960 which I got which was in pretty nasty condition (very
severe rust on the bottom surface, some rust elsewhere, e.g. on the uprights)
using this rig, and some tins of spray paint (Rustoleum flat black), and it
came out looking brand spanking new. (My attempt to do the same with a BA11
ran into some shoals, I screwed up the spray-painting - definitely an art! :-)

Anyway, if you're up for doing it yourself, it's a useful capability to have
in-house.

	Noel