best way to remove CA from the lathe?

Signed-In Members Don't See This Ad
D

darcisowers

Member
Joined
Sep 7, 2009
Messages
352
Location
San Jose, CA
Today I purchased a used lathe (got a great deal) but the previous owner wasn't very careful about where his CA went a flinging....

is there a way to remove the CA so that this lathe won't be so ugly? :biggrin:

I'm thinking that there is something else on there other than CA, cause there's lots of brown "drips" all over it....

anyway, it's cosmetic, so if it doesn't come off, it's no big deal, but I'd love to clean it up if it won't kill me (time or patience-wise).

Thanks in advance for your suggestions.

Darci
 
Signed-In Members Don't See This Ad
Acetone will clean off the superglue, eventually, and will usually not bother the enamel finish. If it's on the ways a single edge razor blade will get most of it off. Sandpaper will finish cleaning it up, and a coat of car wax or floor wax, or even ren wax will keep it from rusting back up. Be sure to clean the bottom of the banjo and the tail stock. Roughing up the washers that hold them and the bottom rails between the ways will help it lock up nice and tight.
 
thanks James. I was mainly worried that acetone would damage the enamel, but I'll try it out and see! Now, where to get acetone by the gallon?! (kidding.)

here's a photo of my ugly lathe. :tongue:
IMG_7817.jpg
 
The local lumber yard here has it, you can buy it by the quart or gallon. I bought a quart for 6.30, they also sell it by the gallon for 16.00 a gallon. I also get my BLO there too.
 
Ummmm ... Maybe sand blast and re-paint?

If you use acetone, be careful using that much. Get a resperator with appropriate VOC filters and find some rubber gloves that acetone won't disolve. Latex gloves will not hold up to acetone.
 
if we end up needing to go the re-paint route, what kind of paint should we get?

upon closer inspection, we see some SOLDER on the banjo and a little on the motor. Solder. now what would the previous owner have done with THAT?
 
Really? we were looking at the Jet site earlier, and didn't see any references to buying replacement paint.

tried the acetone briefly, and it takes off the paint! So if we're going to have to repaint anyway, maybe we'll just use the wire wheel method for cleanup. That worked out great when we restored a 50 year old drill press last fall.
 
Darci,
maybe try a less aggresive solvent first. If the brown spots are friction polish,
alcohol should work, and I wouldn't think it would remove the paint.
Acetone is quite strong.
Ther is also mineral spirits, shouldn't bother paint either.
I use a dull paint scraper (putty knife) on my ways if they get ca drips, just
knocks it right off.
 
I would sand and paint it. The solder is probably from soldering tubes in shell caseings. Home depot has acetone. I would use a good automotive paint. You can match the color close enough. Not that it matters as long as you like it. Show us the final.
 
I'd be tempted to strip that puppy and than take to a mechanic that overhauls engines. Have them dip it for you like they do engine blocks. Then repaint. If you use sand blasting, be sure to seal off those bearing real well. Be a fun project if you like to do that kind of stuff.
 
Can you say "Krylon in your favorite color for $3 a can" ?.....$26.53 a can ? , most likely a quart or less , I can buy Dupont Imron for less then that !!! I don't know about you guys but I don't like the factory color THAT much .
 
I would contact the dude you got it from and ask him what he used to get the stuff off of HIS face, hands, out of his hair, etc.

The previous owner sure did waste a bunch of whatever all that 'stuff' is! AND, I bet he went through a bunch of shirts before his turning career was over. :eek:
 
A little OT

Long ago in a galaxy far away while in college my wife would complain when I would bake a cake because she could not just not eat it.
One early Saturday morning I made a cake.
Called my downstairs neighbor and his wife up, my wife, and showed them my masterpiece.

Eww! Ugh!

Willard and I enjoyed my purple iced cake.

Lee
 
johnny - the alcohol did get a lot of the brown goo off. Thanks for the suggestion.

We worked on dissassembling the lathe last night, and got some of the nastiest CA residue off the headstock (and removed some paint in the process!) The wire wheel wouldn't even get the CA off, so we had to get the acetone to eat it off.

Tonight we'll probably work on it again. The banjo is the worst part. I don't know what this guy did, but I agree - he wasted LOTS of product.

restoration projects are fun (ish). We're just hoping that we remember how to put it all back together!
 
in progress

Here is a photo of the "restoration" in progress. It's been an interesting event.
lathe2.jpg
it's a nekkid lathe.:tongue:

we ordered, and already received, new bearings for it. Oh, and we ordered new JET labels/plaques. It's going to be practically "new" when we are finished!

next job: selecting the paint (Hubby wants to stick with something close to the "original" color), then PAINTING. :biggrin:
 
Last edited:
Here are pictures of the new paint job, although it is still in progress.

We used Almond appliance paint, and got a near perfect match to the original JET color.
painting.jpg

We need to put another coat on to cover some places where we missed... but the instructions say "reapply within 30 minutes or after 1 week." Of course, we didn't realize there were missed spots until it had been 2 hours since the last coat.
new_paint.jpg

new JET labels will be here at the end of the week.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom