Vintage Martin T75 restoration

[Brian Holcombe]

Carl, earlier in the thread we were discussing Burmax stainless and it can be as strong as grade 5 or 8 depending on its grade. Burmax 88 is about the same as grade 5.

[peter gagliardi]

That color looks great. Glad to see you got it all apart with no damage, to you, or it.

[Patrick Walsh]

Thanks for the link Brian,

You know I just might go that route..

I really want to stick to the factory stuff if I can get away with it. I’llmpaint a few and see how it goes. If that does not work I’ll try powder coat. If that doesn’t work the black oxide,

I would go with stainless over nickel plate, but I think just block oxide is best, IMO.

I used these when racing cars, never had a bolt related failure.

https://arp-bolts.com

Catalog page 115 starts metric bulk fasteners.

[Patrick Walsh]

It’s so good to hear people like the color.

Well I’m doing this for me and only me but I do care for some strange reason.

Funny a co worker asked today how many hours I think I’ll have into this when done. He said well it’s gonna be one beautiful beautiful machines and just think all the people that will be impressed by it, he then said oh yeah wait it’s gonna go in your basement shop and nobody will ever see it again but you.

I could quite get a read on what his motivation was and or if he was being honest or wise. I took him for face value as he was being genuine. My immediate thought was whynkn God’s good earth would I do all this work to impress anyone but myself.

But you know I do care that others like the color also. If they didn’t it’s not like I would all the sudden not like it or something but I would be bummed.

That color looks great. Glad to see you got it all apart with no damage, to you, or it.

[Patrick Walsh]

Oh man I’m smoked. Smoked as in as we say here in Boston “wicked tired”..

I’m not stranger to 12-15 hrs days months in end but man this work is very physical compared to making cabinets. I mean it’s not digging holes or erracting staging on high rise buildings “done both” but I think cabinet making is making me soft to real,hard work.

Anyway today I achieve three major tasks.

First i sanded the sliding table support rail to absalure half moon curved perfection. It’s camemout perfect like freaking 110% perfectly consistently flat. I’m oretty excited as this was yet another piece of the machine I wondered how nice I could get but also had a very high expectation of myself.

Only a fools need guide coat. I don’t need no stinking guide coat that what my hands are for.

A long flat block and a piece of 220 revail high and low spots. This is just quick end to end once over with even pressure to get a read on what to do next. From here pressure is applied at the high spots with only this giant block till the low spots disappear.

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About two hours later after a bunch of diligent and patient blocking.

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So that’s sanded to 400 and ready for sealer and finish paint.

Then it was onto the actual sliding table. Again this piece was very important to me as it a piece you see clear as day. The face has a bit more shape to it that creates a line high and low. These lines prior to my work were in miserable shape. Completely undulating, not constant at all and looked to be filled with almost some kind of caulk to quickly bring some uniformity to them. It looked like the caulking job of a hi,emowner whom had never laid a bead of caulk before and had no idea your supposed to actually smooth it out while it away for the most part and just left a giant ugly bead.

I’m not sure how straight or good I’ll ever get these lines onlyntime will tell. I did do a fair amount of metal sanding prior to primer and polyester. They Are still messy even after the polyester and honestly I was supervised being the polyester had fixed everything else for the most part.

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This was probably another 1.5 -2 hrs of sanding. Various blocks employed to get smaller areas flat.

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A close up,of some of the lines I was talking about..

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Sanded to 400 grit and almost ready for sealer and finish paint. Just gotta buff outbthe spot fill in the am.

[Patrick Walsh]

The 400 grit picture that did not fit above..’’

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I was about to call it a day as I was tired and my hands and wrists very sore again. I looked at my re,aiming pile and thought for the zillionth time this week “if I don’t keep at it daily sanding I’m never getting everything in paint this weekend”. I have a schedual to keepmto as spring is here and I have other things I HAVE to do prety much ASAP that are as big if not higher projects than this.

So I got to sanding ten miter insect for the outrigger table. Imhad gotten a light mist of overspray on the machined edge around the perimeter of the table in one of my first spray session. I forgot to tape it but noticed al,ost right away so I didn’t bury it in paint. Anyway for there it got taped but not cleaned up and I continued with my paint and filler work.

I wasn’t sure exactly what to do as this piece I sure is milled to a tolerance to match the sliding table and I didn’t want to mess that up by sanding it. I also didn’t want to sand off the etch primer with aorbital or something and leave dips and or round over edges or anything like that. I wasn’t so much concern about my ability to sand flat with a da but I was concered to not remove a even amount and or make the piece out of flat across its surface.

So I setup to lap it like the sole of a plane. Thank god for the giant cast surface of the T73. A bit of sticky back paper and I was in business..

Again a couple passes showed me the problem spots and tell me what I need to do. A little at a time I keep cross referencing what the sand paper has removed against the flat table of the t73 and my 20” jointer.

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Making progress.

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And done,

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The tables tell the story. I cross referenced on the jointer to make sure the sliding saw table wasn’t lying to me.

I’m not gonna post pictures of all four sides but I promise I could lightly tap on either corner and get zero movement.

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There is a hole that the fence drops into that I was also not happy with as it was a mess after years of use.its still not perfect but much better. My solutions was to add a slight chamfer with a trim router.

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And that’s about it. I still need to finish sanding this piece and again the spot filler on the sliding table. I’d ay that will be my befoermmy work day starts work tomorrow. Gotta stay on track and get at least half the remaimgmpieces sand Ed tomorrow so,Friday night I can finsh up and get everyone re taped.






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[Patrick Walsh]

Again wouldn’t fit above.

This piece was a real mess. I had zero expectation of making it look anywhere this nice ever again. This one is a bonus for me as I had accepted it was gonna always looked well used and beat to crap.

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That’s it, cookiemtime then bed early stat aging tomorrow at 6 am. Soon I,gonna have to start gettting at it by 5am as weekends are gonna be taken up by exterior home work through the summer.

[Patrick Walsh]

Omg what a day, 7-11pm

Only 8mof I got paid for.

There’s always something or someone interrupting my head down desire to just work. It’s kimda blowing my mind how little I got done. I guess to be fair all the pieces I painted need to lol be gone over with 600 grit, re masked them blown off with compressed air and whipped down withnorep wash. It doesn’t sound like much but but I promise it is time consuming.

Oh and I spent two full hours cleaning the spray booth and reproaching the intake and outake filters. I lugged three five gallon buckets full of dust out top the dam thing and three trash barrels full of trash. That doesn’t take into account the empty, half empty and full five gallon buckets of paint slop.

Needless to say I was pissed like 15 minutes into the take cussing and having temper tantrums my mind just blown wondering how the hell anyone could ever let a spray booth get so messy never mind work it. The thought of having to clean it all over again next week before I use it again was just wrecking my head. You know if I could get away with it without reprocussion at that moment I would tore the guy that uses the booths 90% time head off then thrown him down the elevator shaft.

Me very unhappy kissing like five years of my life goodbye..

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The pile on the floor is jus what I pulled out of the booth proper. Well minus the 50 gallon drums. The rest of that stuff in that room is toxic waste that the guy that uses the booth 90% of the time had refused to pay to dispose of over the last 15-20 years. Someday it will become someone else’s problem. See what I mean you just gotta love humans.

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Then three trash barrels full of I don’t even know what. Ok there are only two in the picture but I promise there was three.

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I had to use a leaf blower to blow the dust out the exhaust fan. Yeah a terrible idea but that’s how this idiot cleans his booth. There this much dust in it not just from oversparay but because he sands between coats in the booth. Then he complains he has crap in his paint.

Even after all this I could vacuum eternally and the booth never be dust free. It’s just ruined at this point. There’s a;l kinds of random tools embeded in the floor buried in spilt and or layers of paint. I think you can tell I’m pretty pissed, I just have no tolerance for such slothely laziness.

But it’s better now. Not good...

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Then I got to painting, well not true I spend a bunch of hours sanding and masking then I got to painting.

One coat of sealer, a coat and a half of finish..

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[Patrick Walsh]

Then some green...............

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Most of these pieces need to be flipped and painted again.

Tomorrow I have four hours of sanding and taping and about four hours of painting to do.

That’s all for today folks.

[Martin Wasner]

Omg what a day, 7-11pm

Only 8mof I got paid for.

Punched in at 6:40am, punched out at 1:30am.

Self employment, where the weak get eaten.

[Patrick Walsh]

Martin,

I keep trying to motivate my boss to work the kind of excessive hours you and I do.

We have all this work falling atop each other all the sudden, it’s like 8 months work “2 guys”, there are three of us. The work has to be done and installed by September 1st. Then work everyday he is turning away. Some big projects and some small. I try and tell him it’s normal to run 3 weeks behind thatnitsmwhatnefery other shop on earth and trade does.

We constantly go back and forth how long this will take and how long that will take the financhles related so forth and so on. He is always saying “patrick you always say just take the work if it pays well and we will figure it out” he saiz but we can only produce so much work. I then say just work harder man I’ve done it my whole life. When I say work harder I’m suggesting 6:40-1:30. There’s three of us if we all work 15 hr days we can all make $100,000 a year.

There are only three of us and I’m not tooting my own horn by any means but most people don’t want to work anything more than 8hrs a day regardless of the finachle gain. I also think many are just not capable of that kind of suffering. I see it everywhere I go, people spend more time yapping and avoiding work than working. All I can figure is the average person just must not be wired to actually work hard for anything more than a couple,hours at a time.

You and I must have some kind of sickness as I rather get off on it. I get it from my mom. She is 61 still doing 15 hr days in high tech service support sales. I enjoy nothing more than working a good 8-15 hrs without any interruption just focus and flow..

Punched in at 6:40am, punched out at 1:30am.

Self employment, where the weak get eaten.

[Jeff Bartley]

Then some green...............

That green sure is purty! You're doing an outstanding job Patrick, has Martin showed any interest in this project?

[Darcy Warner]

The first 8 hours is just the part of the day before lunch break.

When I have my kids, I work from 8 until 2, I spend the rest of the day running them all over the place.

When i don't have my kids, i try to work a 12 hour day. Sometimes it's more.

I hate giving up time with my kids, my oldest plays 3 sports and she eats up a lot of time.

I go on field trips with my kids, volunteer for stuff at their schools, etc. I refuse to miss out on my kids growing up.

I will go back to the shop after they go to bed for a few hours when needed.

According to my phone, I average about 5 1/2 hours of sleep a night.

[Patrick Walsh]

In all fairness my boss does have two teenage kids.

I grew up not knowing my father. My mother literally worked two jobs to survive and I either was care for after school by my grandmother or later “early teens” was on my own.

I guess I just think it’s normal if your not wealthy that your parents are gonna be at work.

But you know I made the decision a long time ago now not to have kids knowing dam well I was a tradesman and that I didn’t want to have kids just for them to just go without one of two things or chances both. Actually when I was young and before I truely surcame to my imdentity and a blue color worker and tradesman “yup me I didn’t want to work that hard”. Those two things were money and parent that could be present. I guess I grew up feeling kids were a choice and only for the wealthy. So my hats off to all those blue collar workers that figure out how to raise a happy healthy well adjusted family on a working mans salary. Your all better men a women then me.

You know honestly it’s probably the best decision I ever made as I don’t like much sharing my time. I’m kinda a miser I guess.




.

The first 8 hours is just the part of the day before lunch break.

When I have my kids, I work from 8 until 2, I spend the rest of the day running them all over the place.

When i don't have my kids, i try to work a 12 hour day. Sometimes it's more.

I hate giving up time with my kids, my oldest plays 3 sports and she eats up a lot of time.

I go on field trips with my kids, volunteer for stuff at their schools, etc. I refuse to miss out on my kids growing up.

I will go back to the shop after they go to bed for a few hours when needed.

According to my phone, I average about 5 1/2 hours of sleep a night.

[Patrick Walsh]

Martin,

Yeah Martin Wasner

[QUOTE=Jeff Bartley;2911203]

Then some green...............

That green sure is purty! You're doing an outstanding job Patrick, has Martin showed any interest in this project?