TOPIC:

Two bits of the slide "should" have paint on the sides, but it's such a small area it's not worth the fuss. The third bit (where the peanut butter would be in a PB&J sandwich) has such big areas of unfinished rough casting that I will paint it ... this part alone weighs about the same as an entire Unimat

1940s industrial must be in vogue at the moment, I saw this lamp in B&Q & thought the colour & shape would be appropriate

More motor parts from the de-rusting tank, a bit of scraping and panel beating later, they were ready for paint...

The colour is not what I wanted at all - when the cap, colour swatch (?) and painted example and the name suggest one thing, I think I can be forgiven for thinking the "sky blue" paint should be a bit like Tamiya's shade of the same name, not the sort of paler than baby blue (or grey, or white, depending on light levels) you might find on the underside of a Spitfire.

I was a bit fed up about it, but was inclined to leave it rather than strip back to bare metal/polyethylene & start again ... but then it was pointed out to me that I could view it as undercoat, and put something compatible on over the top. I've ordered both "Beautiful Blue" and the imaginatively named "Blue" in the hope one of those will match the shade I've got in mind

Motor body had the second coat of "gel" removed & the paint razored off, it'll need a third treatment & the wiring tucked in as much as possible (2nd/3rd pics are reference so I can put it back together again).

Masking handwheel from tailstock ...



Primer on some bits ...




Tailstock was a pig to get the paint off, there were a couple of layer of grey interspersed with primer, dark gery, red primer, and under it all thick layer of filler.

The bare metal seems to have been finished with an angle grinder

This paint isn't too bad (though I have to say it seems to have half as much pigment/solid matter as Hycote & Halfords paints), though the colour match is bloody awful once again

Looking good man
The lamp will be very handy and does look "right" for the lathe.
I also did some filling and sanding on my Logan when I was refreshing it. There were a few extra holes from it's previous life, someone must have needed to bolt on some extra bits. I used some 2 part epoxy putty to fill them and sanded it to the contour I wanted, painted it and now I am the only one who knows where they were

Tailstock shaft came out quite nicely




I've been working on the headstock, it's apparent that the (expensive, roller) bearings are in fine condition, but are in very firmly & would get destroyed if I persevered in getting the shaft out, so I'm going to work around them.

One lock pin & cam came out very easily, the other needed a few days soaking in Plusgas & very patient winkling out.

The knock from the pulley turned out to be a missing grub screw so is easily fixed - but I could only find the 3/16"/32 tpi x 3/16" screw I need on eBay China...

The paint & a layer of filler is very firmly bonded, I used a 3/4" (19mm) woodwork chisel & medium hammer to chip it off. Further plan of attack is to wire brush/razor/paint strip off the remainder, flush the bearings out with parafin, treat the rust on the pulley & inside of the nose with Deox gel, clean up, mask & paint.

Not much progress the last few days, this is my replacement for clamping the 40kg (I guess) of slide & toolpost. Tri-lobe nut was from an old lawnmover & now has three coats of plasti dip on it, its odd thread (5/16" UNF) dictated the size of everything else ... the black nylon spacer took seconds to do on the Unimat, the steel T-nut took ages, but probably less than it would have taken if I'd had to file it instead

There will be some serious orders for you later, Jonny.

Started clearing a space in the shed for this, which meant getting to areas that haven't seen the light of day in up to 20 years ... we're talking Indiana Jones level of cobwebs, size & number of spiders

Some (more) colour ...









Meanwhile, Deox gel on the headstock