WoodNet Forums: Re: Restoring an Old Drill Press

Finally... time to do the painting. I'm one week later on getting to this than had been anticipated, but that's because I went almost a full week, including all of last weekend, pretty much not working on this project at all.

In any event, Saturday morning rolls around and all of the paintable parts are cleaned, taped, and ready to go. All of these parts, both small and large, need to be painted on all four sides. Just as importantly, most are roundish items that don't have any clear corners or edges that can be easily taped to do one side one day, and then retaped to do the other side another day. So to do this effectively, I really need to have 360-degree access to each part independently... not a surprise, as I've been down that road before. Bottom line, they need to be hung and suspended.

The head and the table are large, heavy, and bulky, and cannot be moved around easily. A couple ladders and long dowels work well to hold them solidly and far enough apart that they can be worked on independently.

The smaller assembly parts also need to be hung to make it easier to spray everything in one stage. But they can also be lifted and moved to work on one at a time. They are stashed close together between two stands, and lifted one at a time to another area, sprayed, and replaced in the storage space.

A couple coats of primer on everything.

And three coats of paint. Basically, it's just a round-robin process, one part at a time, and by the time you get through each piece, the first is ready to go again.

The color again doesn't come through in these outdoor photos, but they are the same Sage Green color as the base from a couple weeks ago. Everything is now done and sitting hanging in the front yard for the next few hours. I'll bring them inside later and let them hang over night. I may work on some of the smaller assemblies tomorrow, but don't plan to touch the head or table for at least 48 hours, which puts me at Monday or Tuesday to do machine assembly. In the mean time, I'm going to work on final clean-up and buffing of the non-painted parts so that everything will be ready to go in a couple days.

The total time for this morning's work was an hour-and-a-half, including setup. Two coats of primer and three coats of paint took exactly, to the minute as it turns out, one hour.

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Bill
Know, think, choose, do -- Ender's Shadow

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