Craftsman Arbor

[Rick B.]

I scored this little guy today and will be picking it up tomorrow. What I think may be a 1959 Golden Anniversary grinder/buffer arbor. Still has some of it's original gold paint on the bottom edge and the back. Any info on this will be greatly appreciated.

A minute or two in the bead blaster will have it all cleaned up and ready for new paint. Then probably some bearings, a couple of buffing wheels and up on the shelf it goes.

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[Rick B.]

Well got it home today and stripped it all down. Upon closer inspection it appears that 95% or more of the original gold paint seems to be intact under a thick layer of caked on dirt. I have the arbor soaking in a gentile solution of Tide liquid laundry detergent and warm water and will agitate the surface with a soft paint brush. Hopefully this will help dissolve and lift the grime without destroying the paint. But if I lose the original color I'll just **** blast it and repaint which was my original plan anyway.

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[ndnchf]

Cool piece, hope you can save the original paint.

 

[Rick B.]

Well unfortunately I couldn't save the original paint. After soaking for a few hours the color came off right along with the dirt. Too bad really because from what I could see it was just about 100% intact. No matter, once I realized that the original paint was a loss I dropped the arbor in the blast cabinet and dusted it off. Then a good cleaning with lacquer thinner, let it dry and squirted on some color which I think looks pretty darn close to the original.

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When I have a minute at work I'll chuck the axle in the lathe and take off about three threads from each end. There is some rust damage there which makes starting the nuts difficult.

I know it's a very small project but I don't plan on using it so I've decided to mount up a couple of cloth wheels and set up on the shelf over my work bench.

 

[ndnchf]

Nice job!

 

[SweetD]

That is sweet, I'd love to have a vintage C-Man arbor like that, pretty rare!

Nice work!

 

[Rick B.]

And the finished project with cloth wheels. Thanks for looking.

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The End

 

[ndnchf]

Nice job on the refurb. The old arbors are still useful. I have an old one I refurbed and use it now for just one thing - sharpening tungsten electrodes for my TIG welder. I put a diamond disc on the right side for that purpose.

 

[Rick B.]

That's a cool machine.