For those who repaint

[Robert Engel]

Degree of finish is up to you. Minimum is strong wire brushing and rust treatment.

If there is pitting, some people apply bondo like auto body work and sand for a totally smooth surface, but IMO that's overkill for something like this.

Be sure you do that rust inhibitor treatment before painting. Don't rely on the primer to prevent rust.

[Patrick Kane]

Matt, that is really good info for the specific equipment and step by step. I appreciate it.

Correct, this weekend is looking like it will be 50. I dont have the specific paint in front of me, so i dont know what the manufacturer recommends, but just about every paint ive ever seen recommends temps above 50°. I think with oil based you can even go down closer to 40°. It will take longer, but it should cure. I was going to strip it and do the prep work in the garage, but wheel it into my basement shop to sit overnight. That will bring the cabinet up to around 60-65° prior to wheeling it back into the garage to spray with the door open. After it exhausts a bit, i will close the door and turn on a little electric radiant heater i use sometimes for when im spraying waterbournes and its cold. I'll be spraying a sapele island this weekend too, so ill need to run the heater at some point to prevent an orange peel surface. It would be awesome to spray this outside, but im afraid my mild weather days are few and far between for the next three months. Once i reassemble the saw in the basement and start using it, I will never go through the hassle of breaking it down to paint it in the spring. Especially with that big CI extension wing in place.

Yes, i did plan on painting the lower half of the interior cabinet. I noticed there is rust on the inner ledge where sawdust has sat.

Completely unrelated to painting, but does it make sense that the arbor bearings are $50+ a piece? For my unisaw, a chinese bearing was like $2.50 a piece, and i went with a USA make for close to $12-15 a bearing. I get this machine uses a bigger bearing, but $100 to redo the arbor seems steep.

[Bill Dufour]

Bearing should be less then half that unless they are some weird inch bearing. They are not precision bearings. What are the bearing numbers? buy sealed not shielded.
Bill

[Patrick Kane]

Bearing should be less then half that unless they are some weird inch bearing. They are not precision bearings. What are the bearing numbers? buy sealed not shielded.
Bill

By Fafnir and have W205PP stamped on the inner raceway.

[Carl Beckett]

No need to remove all the paint. If the existing paint is sticking on and hard to remove just sand it to feather the edges then paint over it. I think the tractor supply paint is fine in a shop.

+1 imo

I restore old tractors
I have painted automobiles
Also painted machinery, including natural gas compressor station equipment as well as machinist equipment

They are all different animals, and imo the closest is the tractor approach (although I have used automotive paint on 'show' tractors). I do not believe in always stripping the paint to bare metal. If the factory paint is solid and not flaking/bubbling, you likely wont get better adhesion and durability than what is there. Agree about not burnishing.

For corrosion the 2 part epoxy primers are pretty good. I do sometimes use a phosphate treatment on the bare metal. Other times I just shoot primer on it.

This is an indoor item, so you dont really need it to hold up sitting outside in the weather.

I would recommend a wire wheel (steel) to get rid of rusty flakes. Then sand it with a power sander of some type - 80 grit then 150 grit. Then a roll on or spray on top coat (tractor paint is often pretty good). Use a hardner if available. Imron paint has a good rep. Valspar also. Search the tractor sites, lots of good info there. Rollers leave a surprisingly decent finish. And I think if you are going to all this effort you DO want it to look decent!

[Bill Dufour]

vxb $18 each for those bearings. VXB bearings seem to be decent quality.
Bill D.

[lowell holmes]

You might try sanding it with a pad sander. You might not have to take all the paint off. I would try it on a back side so that if it did not turn out the way you want, nothing is lost.

[Jeff Duncan]

Completely unrelated to painting, but does it make sense that the arbor bearings are $50+ a piece? For my unisaw, a chinese bearing was like $2.50 a piece, and i went with a USA make for close to $12-15 a bearing. I get this machine uses a bigger bearing, but $100 to redo the arbor seems steep.

Bigger and better bearings can get expensive quick! Don't know about your specific bearings, but you can easily shell out $600 plus to replace the bearings in a heavy shaper.... so all relative

I'd check around several places to compare prices, then you'll have a better idea.

good luck,
JeffD

[Patrick Kane]

Yeah, I guess I’m getting a lesson in that regard! I called every bearing warehouse today and ended up with a pair of Timken’s for $75. A bit better than the online prices were leading me to believe. I fear for the day I need to replace a proper set of precision bearings.

Have the lower band/plinth cleaned up to bare metal with the brass wire brush I have. This actually wouldn’t be that awful to strip the whole thing down to bare metal if I wanted to. Especially so if I had a proper wheel for my grinder. I imagine steel bristles would eat through paint and rust like a pit bull through chuck roast.

[Jeff Heath]

You'll get out of your paint job/restoration what you put into it. Depends on what you're after.

Here's the same machine, I restored 8 years ago.

Before:

basefront.JPG

After soda blasting:

blastedfront.JPG

After primer and SW acrylic epoxy

handlesblack.JPG

Could be just the way I am, but if I'm going to go to all the effort to restore a machine, I just do it complete.

Just in case, here's the SW paint code:

PeaGreenpaintcode.JPG

[Patrick Kane]

Jeff,

interested in in your hand wheel handle swap. That is exactly what I was thinking of doing with mine. I have a broken off pin in the one and a bent handle on the other. I was going to drill out the embedded pin and tap it for a similar handle. Where did you source them?

despite what everyone said, the primer went on perfectly. I brushed and sanded all the rust off the bottom, but only pad sanded the rest of the cabinet. It’s only the primer, but I love the look of it already. I actually don’t know how much better I would want or expect, and I’m glad I didn’t go through the hassle or expense of sandblasting or completely stripping the cabinet. I’m still a little blown away by how perfect the coat went on. Can’t stress how awful it is to clean the cup and gun after spraying this oil enamel. Excited to spray the top coat in another day or two.

[Jeff Heath]

I bought a bunch of those handles at an OWWM swap meet years ago. They are available online, though. These were threaded in, and I drilled and tapped the handles. I do not like the handles that came with the saw, which is why I replaced them.

[Patrick Kane]

And here we are with the almost finished product. I need to drill and tap the hand wheels for metal handles, and then assemble everything inside. Oh, getting the motor back from the local shop and a VFD from Jack would help too. But, all painting is done. Overall, for anyone that reads this in the future, I didn’t do much surface prep and this turned out very well. My surface finish has a very minor texture to it, but I think that is more a factor of not sanding the primer, spraying in 40s air temp, and maybe not thinning the enamel enough for my 4 stage Fuji. This is nit picking though. For me, it’s a tool, and this finish is probably equal or better than what came from the factory. Polished the hand wheel rims up on the lathe at 800 grit. 37CA4AF8-5F93-4EA2-8677-7D09874BEE3A.jpg

[Jim Becker]

That looks REALLY good, Patrick!

[Patrick Walsh]

Looks good to me.

Like the green.