Inside Doc's Shop...

[DocsMachine]

And DONE!

Over 250 pieces, that took an average of maybe around seven minutes each. (This isn't all of them, the cart isn't big enough to hold all the bins. )



I'd have lit up the turning center to start crankin' em through, but I have about five hundred and eleven other things screaming for my attention, so maybe tomorrow. Should be a nice break to have a 2:20 cycle time rather than an 8:05

Oh, and there's gonna be some brass in there somewhere, too.

Doc.

 

[DocsMachine]

Man, time flies even when you're not having any fun at all.

Sorry I haven't had much by way of updates lately- it's not that I haven't been doing anything, it's just that what I've been doing isn't all that photo-worthy. You lot have seen my lathes and turning centers before.

That said, I scrounged through my camera cards and found a few things. A couple of weeks back, I finally finished up a contract run...



... Of a part some of you may recognize and will hopefully shortly be up for sale.



Most everything else was more turning...



Yet more turning...



And then scrubbing and boxing, ready to ship off to the anodizer.



One fun bit was I made a special collet, to give a part a little more support. I started with a well-used extended-nose machinable collet, one out of a big batch I got off eBay a while back...



And set that up on the Sheldon lathe. These collets for some reason weren't machined for the usual spacer pins that let you tighten the collet into the taper, but not collapse it closed. I made do with three stainless washers from the bins (as they were thinner than the regular steel ones.)



That got drilled out...



Bored precisely to size (1.004")...



And checked for fit. Damn near perfect, if I do say so myself.



For a little panache, I kicked the compound over 'bout thar, and trimmed off a bit of superfluous metal.



Like so.



Why? The collet protrudes almost an inch more from the spindle face than a standard 5C, and so helps support a longer part that sticks out a little more than others. Besides helping support the part itself, a happy extra is that the part moves away from the spindle, giving a little extra room, in some cases, for certain odd tool setups on the gang-tooled CNC.

I've only had that happen once so far, but this collet would have helped with that, too.

And so, cleaned up, deburred and buffed a little...



And installed.



I only had time after that to just start on programming the part, and I still need to make another tool (or more accurately, finish one I started more than a year ago. ) but hopefully in the next couple of days I can get this basket of parts...



...Run, finished and boxed up, and get all of it off to the anodizers.

Lots in the works this week. Probably not much worth showing off, but it's all still progress.

Doc.

 

[DocsMachine]

It's strange that, no matter how many tools you have, you still never seem to have the right ones.

For this project I'd already modified a collet, and when it came time to run the part, I needed to be able to chamfer an inner passage. The tool block didn't already have a cutter that could do the job, and I didn't want to have to set up and prove a whole new toolset.

What I did have was a 60-degree diamond (shape) profiling cutter...



But it's too "thick". It's not meant to fit into small-diameter holes, and so the back of the toolholder hits and 'smears' the metal.



I'd started making a tool for exactly this a while ago, but I'd made it from undersized material. I either needed to whip up an adapter bushing, or just remake the tool. The latter was only moderately easier, so I sawed off a chunk of 5/8" O-1 (oil-hardening) tool steel, and turned a 60 degree point on it.



Set up in the mill, I cut a flat along the top...



And then milled half the point off.



After that, I got out the seldom-used gas-axe, and by lucky chance (and a little laziness ) I had a can of some of the old ****** fluid left lying about. I heated the cutter to cherry red and quenched 'er in the oil- no pics, hard to juggle a lit torch, a bar of red-hot steel and a camera without either melting my face off or, y'know, burning the shop down.



Now, as anyone who has heat-treated O-1 will tell you, it tends to "grow" slightly in the process- in my case, the treated end grew almost exactly .001", and since it was already a snug fit into the tool holder, I had to turn that thou back off, very carefully.



In that pic, the cutter is moving away from the chuck- the thin darker band at the far left is the starting point. The lighter colored dull band is untreated steel, and the shiny band is the heat-treated portion.



With a little strategic sanding and polishing here and there, it fit nice and snugly. Took a little trial-and-error to get it adjusted, but she works.



Interesting tidbit there: That tool is a one-off, basically meant just for this one part. Therefore I didn't bother assigning a tool number to it. I'd used the threading tool directly below it ("T15") to very lightly chamfer the outer corners, so I simply sent it down and to the left 'til the new tool went where I wanted it.

And she worked perfectly- which is more than I can say for the camera.



Hard to tell with the overexposure, but that burred, rolled corner from the original tool is gone, with a smooth, proper chamfer in it's place.

After that, I just had to chew my way through the rest of the parts.



Still a few steps left, but with luck, I hope to have these off to the anodizers by Saturday or Monday.

Doc.

 

[DocsMachine]

Looks like it'll be Monday.

Whipped up a fresh program to round off the distal end...



And ran the whole lot through. Nice little run, less than one minute cycle time, everything ran smoothly.



After that... allow me to pontificate a bit. The last time I ran this part, I did the drilling on the CNC, but threaded the end (female 1/8" NPT) on the turret lathe. That was because the Omniturn can't rigid tap, and I didn't, and still don't, have a floating tap holder big enough to hold an eighth-pipe tap- and, you know, actually fit in the machine. The two I have for the big turret are the size of a soda can and weigh about three pounds each.

In this case, I've been switching over to pre-set tool sets, to make programming easier, and enabling re-running previous parts just by switching to that program. (That is, without having to re-install, re-zero and re-prove a new tool set each time.) And, of course, I don't have one set up for drilling yet- point in fact, I'm not 100% sure how I'm even going to do that yet.

But, I do still have the two turret lathes, and those are easy enough to set up, especially just for drilling, and both were designed to run things like releasing tap holders.

I'd planned to use the big Warner & Swasey, since it has the functional flood oil, but I ran into a problem. The bar stock I'd used for this run was slightly on the large size- 1.003" to 1.004", which this stuff is usually .998" to 1.000". That doesn't sound like much- and it's not, generally speaking- but in the case of the big turret, the collets it uses and the collet mechanism have very little tolerance, and no real adjustability. I can get it to lock on this material, but I have to really lean on the mechanism- using a lot more force than I'd like.

With the 5C- far more common- I have something like five different 1" collets, ranging from about .999" to around 1.005", due to variations in manufacturer tolerances- and, since I got most of them used, possibly a touch of wear. And, the 5C system has an inherent adjustment built in- you can run it a touch loose for larger material, and a touch tight for smaller- although we're talking a few thousandths of an inch.

So, I instead opted for the smaller Rivett turret- which hasn't gotten enough use this year so far anyway. I still had to use one of the big tap holders- that ********* thing pointing away from the camera, on the turret.



But, this is the kind of process this sort of lathe was designed for, and I still find it kind of fun to run these old analog machines.



Would have been faster if I had the flood oil set up on this machine, but I've been reluctant to do so since the layout and position in the shop, doesn't lend itself well to containing the splash.

Anyway, griping aside, the whole lot is done, and just needs one more finishing step. I could easily be able to have these out the door Monday morning.

Doc.

 

[DocsMachine]

Stolen from the internet and lightly modified.



Doc.

 

[DocsMachine]

Today (Sunday) was comparatively easy. For this current run, all I needed to do was turn the OD of these parts down a few thou. So, as per long-established procedure, I chucked up a hunk of scrap in the Sheldon, turned a 60-degree point on it in place (ensuring concentricity) and proceeded to skim them down one at a time.



After a couple of hours, I had all of them run- except a couple I'm saving for something- and got them cleaned up, wrapped and boxed.



Said box, along with two other small batches of parts, should be on it's way in the morning, and it's time to move on to the next thing!

Doc.

 

[DocsMachine]

Doc.

 

[zanyad]

the Omniturn can't rigid tap

Can it single-point thread?

EDIT: I see it can single-point thread from your video. If you have the space for it, a Micro 100, ph horn, Iscar, or similar internal threading bar will do ya nice.

 

[DocsMachine]

Tapping NPT threads on a Turret lathe:

Doc.

 

[DocsMachine]

As of July 1st, Doc's Machine & Airsmith Services has been in operation for twenty eight years. Officially started July 1, 1998.

I attribute my longevity to skill, determination, dedication, obstinacy, stubborness, sheer ignorance, misplaced optimism and just plain pig-headed obstreperousness.

And I couldn't have done any of it without you lot. Customers past, present and future, supporters, readers, Patrons, fans, friends and even those that simply don't wish me any specific harm.

I'm arguably the longest-running paintball machinist/airsmith, if we add the qualifiers of being always under the same shingle and in the same shop, and I hope to keep going for a long time to come.

Thank you all for your support, and I hope to have more to show you all in the near future!

Doc.

Doc's Machine and Airsmith Services

The Whiteboard, a somewhat paintball-related webcomic by "Doc" Nickel

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[larry4406]

Congrats on the milestone!

Hell of an achievement!

 

[bugnut]

Congrats and heres to many more!

 

[Xti04]

Congrats Doc ! Paintball was a big part of my life as a teen, I worked at a mini golf course, go kart repair and paintball were my specialties there. I also learned how to do plumbing, lay carpet on mini golf courses, and generally how to do a million things that have shaped my adult life and skills. Keep it up !

 

[jlenander]

Congrats Doc!
I've enjoyed following your adventures through your posts here!
Happy 4th!

 

[DocsMachine]

Thanks guys! Hope you had a good Fourth!

In my earlier days as a car-guy, I was a bit of the local carburetor expert. The cheap cars us snot-nosed kids could actually afford often still had carbs, and were even back then old enough said carburetors always needed a good cleaning and rebuild. I was one of the few people that dared delve into the pits of those boxes of Black Magic- and also weird enough to actually own and read books about them.

As you might imagine, the interest and need of such dark arts has somewhat waned over the years, and the last rebuild I did was on the Quadrajet on my Cutlass, back around 2011-2012.

But, a friend of a friend heard through the grapevine I handled such matters, and he brought me a truly old-school hot-rod Holley last week.



I haven't rebuilt a double-pumper in several dogs' ages, but these things are fairly simple, and this particular one, as it turns out, was only in need of a cleaning. The guy clearly has some really old gas in it- it was urine yellow and when some spilled out onto the workbench, it literally took half a day to evaporate. You can see the faint stains to the right of the carb:



In other news, past few days I've been pushing parts through the Omniturn again- new YT video for ya- including a somewhat overdue batch of brass.



Problem is, I've been having issues with chatter, which is partly due to the tools- the cutting inserts- not being optimized in shape or angle for brass.



In the past I've been able to tweak the speeds & feeds to eliminate it, but in this case, I'm working to try and standardize a small library of programs. That lets me run another batch of parts later, with minimal setup. I want to keep the program dialed in for the usual aluminum parts, so that meant taking alternative steps.

Chatter is of course simply a harmonic, and brass "rings" nicely- which is why they make bells and cymbals and things out of it- I simply needed to dampen those harmonics. So, after a little thought and some lathe time, I came up with this:



It's just an aluminum rod, turned to fit loosely in the brass material bore, with a bolt and a bandsawed wedge. When tightened into the bore, it adds mass and dampens the vibration.





And that solved the issue. No change in feeds and speeds, and as you can see in the above video, no chatter whatsoever.



Should have the rest of the brass done by this evening, and start on the profiling tomorrow.

Doc.

 

[rharman]

@DocsMachine - When I saw that Holley, first thing I thought of was Riley's Rebuilds. Young girl, now 20, that started a carb rebuild business when she was 13. Pretty interesting story...

US Teen Makes A Business Out Of Rebuilding Carburetors

The crew at Riley's Rebuilds works out of a garage and handles about 20 carburetors a week. Here's how the repair process works.

autorecyclingworld.com

About us

At Riley's Rebuilds, we're total pros at fixing up carburetors. Our crew dives deep into each one, scrubbing and rebuilding with mad attention to detail and performance. Got an old carb that needs a makeover or want a fresh rebuilt one? We've got you covered. Our custom service guarantees your...

rileysrebuilds.myshopify.com

 

[DocsMachine]

Okay, that's pretty cool. I have to admit I'm surprised there's a market that big, but hey, with the reach of the internet- and, as I said, most people thinking a carb is some manner of dark magic - I guess there is.

I wonder if she also offers tuning advice, or just a straight up rebuild.

And... just Edelbrocks and DGVs? I suppose if that's enough to keep her in business, but man, you'd think that Holley services would more than double her traffic.

Doc.

 

[txvwnut]

That insert idea for the brass is slick as ever. I need to put that in the memory bank if I ever encounter the need.

 

[zanyad]

So, after a little thought and some lathe time, I came up with this:

It's just an aluminum rod, turned to fit loosely in the brass material bore, with a bolt and a bandsawed wedge. When tightened into the bore, it adds mass and dampens the vibration.

Is that tapped on the left and clearance drilled on the right? That's the only way I could figure it working: when tightening the SHCS, the slot forces the two pieces against opposite sides of the bore. Wouldn't that push it out of round, though?

 

[rharman]

Okay, that's pretty cool. I have to admit I'm surprised there's a market that big, but hey, with the reach of the internet- and, as I said, most people thinking a carb is some manner of dark magic - I guess there is.

I wonder if she also offers tuning advice, or just a straight up rebuild.

And... just Edelbrocks and DGVs? I suppose if that's enough to keep her in business, but man, you'd think that Holley services would more than double her traffic.

Doc.

She does Holley's and Quadrajets too.

The backstory about her first car is cool. Parents said it had to have a roll bar and be a stick. She got a 1995 YJ.

Holley 4150/4160 rebuild

My name is Riley I am a Junior in College and I own a carburetor rebuild company to help young girls and boys get into the hotrod world. We have been doing it for four years and are really good at it. We can rebuild your Holley 4150 or 4160 The process is the same each time, I completely strip...

rileysrebuilds.myshopify.com

 

[DocsMachine]

Brass!







(And a little bit of not-brass. )

Doc.

 

[bugnut]

purdy!

 

[DocsMachine]

I needed to get a couple of jobs off the table while I had this tool group set up and adjusted, and one of them was the rest of this brassy goodness.









All in all, finished up another baker's dozen of these barrel backs- almost all of my on-hand material- and got 'em buffed and scrubbed and ready to head out the door.

Doc.

 

[DocsMachine]

Today was the day! I'd been holding off a couple of multi-hundred-part runs while I try to catch up on a handful of smaller ones, and finally caught up enough to start.

The trick here was that I needed to swap to a new tool set, since the one I'd been running these past few months didn't have the right ones. So I stripped out the previous set, and spent a solid half hour cleaning out the machine.



I then set up the necessary tools, and, since I'll be using bar stock rather than pre-cut pieces, I pulled the collet stops and looked again at the outboard end of the spindle.



The issue here is that I want extra support for the long bars (cut to 36") at the left end of the spindle, so they don't "whip" and cause vibration. The correct solution for something like this is called a spindle liner- a plastic sleeve that slips into the spindle bore, that more closely fits the OD of the stock.

The problem is, first, the factory-made spindle liners are over $200 each, and second, only go up to 7/8". And I'm using nominally 1" stock.

The last time I ran this part, I made up this little plug...



But it was only retained by that O-ring. The fresh batch of stock is very slightly larger diameter, and that collar no longer fit. And I didn't want to bore it out, since the thickness at the bottom of that O-ring groove was already very thin. What I needed was a way to hold the collar in, without that O-ring.

What I wanted to do was pull the drawtube and drill and tap the end face for a pattern of three holes or so, so a "top hat" shaped collar could be bolted in place, or a small cap/washer sort of thing could retain it.

Unfortunately I don't have snap-ring pliers big enough or powerful enough to remove the retainer. I need to buy a pair, since these pneumatic collet closers need periodic servicing, but for now, I need to get this ball rolling. I should have been running these parts months ago.

The only other option is those radial screw holes, meant to either retain a cap or plug (I use 'em to hold an adjustable collet stop in place) or to retain a long thin rod like a 4-jaw chuck.

Why not just use those to hold the bar stock? The end cap/plug/support also helps control some of the oil that travels down the drawtube.

So, while I will at some point pull that drawtube and drill and tap the end, for the time being I'll just throw a bodge at it. To that end, after almost three minutes of noodle time, I found a likely looking hunk of 3" aluminum round, and sawed off a hunk about yea long.



That I chucked up in the Monster and hogged out a bunch of the extraneous meat...



And then switched it over to the Sheldon for the fine tuning.





I was playing it by ear, and after a quick test fit, realized something was minorly wrong, and adjusted my dimensions slightly.



That bit will fit over the end of the drawbar like so...



And when we close the access cover, you'll see why we needed that adjustment.



The inner bore of the cap was recessed to take a piece of 1/5" Delrin round...



Which was itself turned on the OD to fit the ID of the drawtube, and then bored out to snugly fit the OD of the bar stock.



That slides into the end of the drawbar, the stock fitted through that...



And the cap slid over the whole works.



Yeah, it's a bodge and convoluted, but it should work to get this job done. I still need to set up the indexing head and drill the bolt pattern, and dig up a set of matching screws that should hold 'er in place- as well as drill a couple of oil-drainage ports.

And somewhere along here I'll pick up a good set of snap-ring pliers, and re-do the whole thing, but right now, I got parts to cut!

Doc.

 

[bugnut]

Looking good Doc, might you have access to a 3d printer it could help you for various bar stock diameters.

 

[DocsMachine]

I have a buddy with 3D printers, but in this case, the wall thickness of the insert is less than 1/16". A piece of solid Delrin will be stronger than most 3D printed bits. Remember, it has to hold up to several hundred parts.

That said, spoiler alert: There's a good chance that was all for naught. (Not in a bad way.)

Doc.

 

[DocsMachine]

Yep, wasted time.

I was going to have the machine turn the piece, then part it off. That saves the time of having to cut the blanks myself, and can often use the material a little more efficiently. (That is, less material is wasted in cuts, especially crooked ones, and I can often get one or even two extra pieces per bar of raw material.

That's what I did the last time I ran this part, and that's why I was making the end cap- to help support the long end of the bar. But this time, I'm making two similar parts, one longer than the other- and my parting tool holder doesn't have the depth for the longer of the two.

So I either make a new tool holder, or just go back to hand-cutting the blanks like I usually do.

One improvement from before, is the 'sled' I made for the bandsaw- that lets me make straighter and much more consistent cuts to the bar stock, so... yeah, I went with that.

I abandoned the end cap idea (for now) and just plugged the spindle bore against the flood oil. Fit it with the usual collet and collet stop, and just... run like usual.



I'll be running a lot of these, so I spent a little extra time making sure I had everything spot-on.



Each part will need to be turned at both ends- so two setups each, for a total of four setups.



Stand by, this may take a while.



Doc.

 

[DocsMachine]

Submitted without comment.









Doc.

 

[RickP]

Responded with comment: Nice!

 

[M.Brane]

Chips ahoy!

 

[DocsMachine]

Still busy! I got the first half of the current part- that I've posted about recently- finished, at least the first 210 of them. I was going to start on the other end, the more complex one, but I was halfway through setting up up, had a minor crash- a test crash if you will - that basically undid an hour's work.

As I had other thing to do, I... well, went and did them, lest I break something.

This afternoon, I sat back down with the machine, re-set the tools, rewrote what I had of the program, re-tested it- no crash! - and went on from there. After a few very minor hiccups, I started producing workable parts at about 4 PM, and ran what I could 'til hunger drove me into the house in search of sustenance.





Only 144 left to go! ... in this batch.... with a roughly three-minute cycle time... which is over seven hours...

Doc.

 

[DocsMachine]

Ran another third of these parts today- with luck, I can have these off to the anodizers by Friday. Fortunately they fall out of the machine ready to go save for cleaning, and that should just be a couple batches through the ultrasonics.

Thing is, as much as I like watching this machine run, yeah, it wears a bit thin after the tenth or twelfth part. With a slightly-over-two-minute cycle time (I've been going by nominally three, including part changes) that gives me a bit of time to do other things.

It was a really nice day, so I opened the garage doors, got out the buffer, and finished polishing up the handful of stainless 'Cocker detents I'd assembled a couple months back. I could do three per cycle, so it didn't take long to do the bin. No pics I was just tryin' to get stuff done.

But, once I had that done... most anything else couldn't easily be broken up into two-minute bites. I've got some bandsawing to do, but I didn't want to keep starting and stopping the saw, I did a little cleanup and put some tools away, didn't want to start anything big...

But, my eye fell upon the tailstock I'd gotten a while back for the Rivett. It really could have just been cleaned and lubed a bit and put to work (although I admittedly don't really need a tailstock for that particular machine... *) but you all know that's not how I work.

So, a bit at a time, I got it dismantled...



And since I had the buffer already out, I hit a couple of the parts with the burnishing wheel. (Like the handwheel, in the center.) Some of the smaller bits I want to hit with some paint stripper, but the body, I think I'm just going to thoroughly degrease, sand, fill in some of the chipped original filler, and paint.



I'll probably do a little more on that tomorrow when I run the hopefully-last third of these aluminum bits, maybe paint it this weekend.

Doc.

(*While I wanted it just to increase the capability of the machine, for some unforseen future job, I mainly wanted it to improve the resalability of the lathe. If it's a pure turret lathe, hardly anybody to nobody will want it. If it's a "plain turning" metalcutting lathe, then there's at least some value to it.)

 

[DocsMachine]

I thought I was done!

Had a busy day, and couldn't get the machine lit up 'til later in the afternoon, but I persevered and got the last third of these parts run.



BUT...! I managed to screw up my count slightly, forgetting a small detail. So, I got out a bit more material, lit up the bandsaw and...



The plan is actually to run quite a few more of these, but I'd wanted to get a smaller batch finished up and off to the anodizer, letting me finish up another chunk of them at a more leisurely pace. So no real big to crank out a couple dozen more... I just thought I was done!

And, while I was running today's batch, while I didn't want to break out the Bondo and patch up the Rivett tailstock, I had these two bits for the big Springfield lathe.



That's a spare cross slide and compound, and proper taper attachment, for my machine. (For those of you that didn't follow that build, the lathe when I got it had the wrong compound and taper attachment. I swapped the compound with a modified one, but the taper was a bit of a mongrel. I found a guy parting out a literal sister to my machine [the serial numbers were only like 37 apart] and managed to acquire the parts. A year and a half ago. )

I've been wanting to get these cleaned up ever since- and no better time than when I have, well, fifty instances of two minutes at a time.

The only real trick is that the donor machine spent a couple years out in the weather- it didn't get too rusty, but the adjuster screw for the taper kind of got hit pretty hard.



Rather than try and winch that thing out with an impact and a bunch of WD, I set up my little sandblaster-pistol, and hosed off as much rust as I could.



After that, with a little lube, it came right out. She struggled a bit at the nastiest part of the threads, but not as bad as if I'd left the rust- and I was mainly worried about damaging the nut inside.



I've got it soaking in some Evap-O-Rust now, and once I pull it out, I'll run a die down it. It'll never be perfect, but it'll do the job.



With that, the dovetail rail came out with only minor complaints, and she's ready for cleaning.



Thinking I'll take a me-day this weekend, and spend some time pressure-washing, prepping and painting these things. Maybe tomorrow when I'm running the other parts, I'll pull the steady rest apart too...

Doc.

 

[DocsMachine]

And done, Ladies and Gentlemen! Done and gone!

Thursday I ran a small additional batch, bringing the total count for this particular part up to 237. Nice round number? Again, I'll be running more in the near future, and don't want to cut more material just yet.

Anyway, the machining didn't take too long, and while that was going on, I was washing the bulk of the oil off the previous parts with some of my patented lead-free solvent...



At which point I noticed a number of them had lightly burred threads. That won't do for a retail product, so while the CNC was doin' it's thing, I ran all the rest of them- over 200- through the little speed lathe, to give the threads a quick lick with a fine file to smooth them up a touch.



And finally, when I was thoroughly sick and tired of handling these things, I ran 'em all through the ultrasonics, a few fistfuls at a time.

Friday morning, I packed 'em all up, along with a few other parts I had ready to go, and finally shipped 'em off to the anodizers!

So that's finally out of the way (at least for a couple of weeks) and despite there being about 27,000 other things I need to jump right back into... I think I'm gonna take a me-day or two this weekend.

Doc.

 

[DocsMachine]

So, I took a break from workin' in the shop by.... workin' in the shop.

Doc is indeed a dull boy.

I'd been meaning to clean up these Springfield parts ever since I got them... in January of '25... and since I started on 'em last week, I figured I ought to finish. The taper attachment was the big one- that is, the part I most wanted for the machine. And, a fairly straightforward job, not much more than a cleanup, rust removal, and paint.

All of this didn't necessarily happen in the order shown- it was more concurrent actually- but I reordered it a bit to make it a better read.

One thing I did several days ago, was dunk some parts in Evap-O-Rust. My bottle is getting a little towards the used-up side, so I left it all to soak for two or three days. The worst offender was the handle and dial off the compound:



Evap can't fill the pits back in, but it got the rust pretty well removed:



The slightly-less-cooperative part was the slide swivel from the taper attachment.



Some of the rust came right off with the old trick of a razor blade scraper, some Scotchbrite, and some WD-40...



But quite a bit of it turned out to be fairly stubborn. This is a semi-precision slideway, so I didn't just want to light into it with a wire wheel or worse, a sandblaster, so I found a bottle of Naval Jelly and tried that.



Turns out the bottle was pretty old, with half of the contents... like, solidified, somehow. The rest of the liquid, which I seem to recall was originally a bright pink color, and was now a light cream, seemed to work, however, and removed quite a bit of the rust.

The liquid ran out before the rust did, to I jogged up to the auto parts store and grabbed another- which is what reminded me the stuff was supposed to be pink.



Lather, wait, rinse and repeat....



Along with some (hand) wire brushing and a little Scotchbrite, and it eventually came out pretty clean.



Still need to reach down into the deep Vee of the dovetail, but I can do that before I finally install it.

As for the main taper casting, I first scrubbed and degreased it...



And had originally hoped I could just paint it, but too much was flaking, so I hit it with a couple cycles of paint stripper.



And, got lightly bit again. A couple years ago, when I was rebuilding/painting the Rivett, since I was at Sherman-Williams getting some fresh paint mixed up, I bought a quart can of their "professional strength" paint stripper. When I was prepping for this job, I found it, and used it for the first run on this casting.

And, I was immediately reminded why I still had a nearly-full can: I'm not sure this stuff can strip watercolors off a countertop. I think the last time I used it, I complained in a thread like this, that I doubted the stuff could get dry-erase marker off of a whiteboard.

I brushed it on, and yeah, it softened the paint slightly. It would have made it easier to scrape off with a razorblade, if I wasn't trying to get it off cast iron that was rougher than a pine cone.

Do, I jogged back into town and bought a can of Jabsco premium from Homey-Dee, and it still took a couple cycles, but that did the trick.



After the last cycle, assisted by the wire brush and a scraper, I scrubbed it again thoroughly, blew it dry, and plunked it on the welding table. An hour or so later- I was still doing some of the above stuff- I gave it a coat of freshly-mixed "all surface" enamel. (Same stuff, but a slightly different shade, as what I used on the Rivett.)



Except, when I checked on it about half an hour later, it had apparently contracted measles.





I think I probably should have let the casting dry a little longer- like overnight- before painting. Checking several hours later, the paint's basically dry to the touch, and each spot looks like rust- or a spot of dirty water- and it doesn't wipe off.

I'm not sure if i should re-strip the new paint, re-scrub the casting, then let it dry for a couple of days... or just give it the planned second coat, and see if the spots bleed through again. Maybe hit it with some self-etching primer as a 'sealer' and then give it two coats on top of that?

That's what I get for being in a rush to get the job done...

Doc.