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Posted by Prometheus on April 21, 2007, 6:54 pm
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>Hello New to the group. I have been lurking for a week or two. I am
>teaching myself a bit of blacksmithing as a hobby.
>
>I managed to score a postleg vice this morning.
>
>It is a bit of a mess covered with old paint and the spring is gone, looks
>as if it rusted away. There is pitting under the layers of paint so it will
>require a bit of work to get it fully functional again.
>
>Some advice that I would like from the group is some idea how best to
>remove the paint so that I can derust the vice and get it fully functional
>again.
If you want to use a less toxic method, I have had good luck with the
non-toxic orange stripper.
There *is* a trick to it, though- if you just wipe it on in the open
air, it will dry out before it is finished doing the job. What I do
when something is too big to soak in a sealed container (as I'm sure
your vise is) is brush on a nice thick coat of the stuff, and then
wrap the whole thing in cheap aluminum foil.
Let is sit for about a day, and 99% of the old paint will come off
along with the foil. What is left will be very easy to rub off with a
wire brush or scrape away with a putty knife.
Easy to do, and easy to clean up. IIRC, the orange stripper is a
little more expensive, but you don't have to wear a respirator and
elbow length PVC gloves to use the stuff (though it is always a good
idea to wear gloves of some sort when doing this- I usually use latex
disposable ones). If it gets on your skin, there's plenty of time to
go wash it off before it burns you- and if you've ever gotten a
chemical burn from stripper, that alone makes it worth the extra
couple of bucks.
The other option that comes to mind is sandblasting. If you've got a
pretty good compressor, a gravity fed blaster is fairly cheap and will
do the job as well- though that is pretty messy, and can sting a bit
if you're not wearing adquate clothing and a face shield.
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