Thanks for the kind words! For me, the detail is second nature... I used to work as an auto repair tech in the auto body field. High end work is what I am used to, so a very good paint job is not that hard for me. Heck, if I had to cash to throw around, just think how nice I could make them look with car paint! All of this stuff was either spray can, or at the best, farm & fleet paint sprayed with a gun!
Anyway, today I hammered down and really went to town on the saw. I have the saw up and running with the new motor, but I had to go up 3/4" on the motor pulley size over what it should have. I was not able to clear the casting with the belt with a smaller pulley. For the 3450 motor, I should have a 3.25" pulley, 4.00" was the smallest I could go with. This brought my blade speed up a full 900 rpm! I am now at 4600 rpm. but the Freud blade is rated for 7000 rpm, so I hope to be safe. Without the blade, the saw seems just fine running that high. I just hope that the higher rpm on a 1hp motor has enough torque at that speed. Only one way to tell though!
So anyway, after I had the motor sorted out and the saw running on it's own, I decided that I was going to paint it up while it's apart. The good thing is the saw is new mint and does not require any body work or welding. The insides are clean enough to blow it out and leave it as is. So I removed the hand wheels, tags, and went to town stripping it. I had planned to just sand it, but it was faster to strip it with a wire wheel and then hit it with a DA sander. AS of right now, I have the cabinet in primer along with the dust door and the switch box.
And after a coat of primer....
I did spray a coat of gray on the goose-egg, but it's a bit darker than this shows. I am going to spray the saw in Massey Ferguson gray, which is darker than the OE... but it's my saw, so there! I am debating picking up a quart of paint and spraying it with a gun.
Once the primer dries up a bit, I am going to fire up the oven and powder coat the knobs that lock the hand wheels. I have some nice textured powder coat if memory serves me right. I am also working on polishing the hand wheels before I paint them.
One everything is done, I can turn my sights on the top. I am not going to go crazy and repaint the whole underside, because this is a working saw, not a show piece. I would love to find a good replacement for it, because it had a power feeder bolted to the top and one extension in it's past. I will bevel the holes and fill them with JB weld for now. It *****, but what can you do?