A '54 named Busty

[Gregski]

so yeah, half a day later, the walnut shells did nothing - really wish they would have told you that, oh wait...

[Gregski]

so on to the louder, I mean plastic media

[Gregski]

took it easy today on account of injuring my right elbow and forearm from all that wire wheelin' and grindin' (take care of your bodies young bloods)

I call this the hood release panel, here it is with the brown primer wet and dry

[Gregski]

I also primed, primered? primertized?? the insides of the fenders

[Gregski]

and the radiator frame got some love too

I don't know about you, but there sure seems to be a ton of pieces that make up the front clip, let's see if we can count em

1. hood - not being treated at this time
2. driver fender
3. passenger fender
4. driver inner fender
5. passenger inner fender
6. driver fender bracket
7. passenger fender bracket
8. radiator frame
9. hood release panel
10. upper grille piece
11. grille nose
12. grille driver middle piece
13. grille passenger middle piece
14. grille bottom piece
15. grille driver parking light piece
16. grille passenger parking light piece
17. radiator frame driver bracket (home made)
18. radiator frame passanger bracket (home made)
19. radiator splash panel sits above the bumper
20. front bumper
21. driver headlight bucket
22. passenger headlight bucket
23. driver headlight bezel
24. passenger headlight bezel
25. driver fender support rod
26. passanger fender support rod

and that's that

[Gregski]

so all that wire wheeling hurt my right elbow and forearm [insert dirty joke here, I'll hold]

it hurts so bad I have to use the mouse with my left hand

[Gregski]

but I managed to press on and got the inside of both fenders painted Semi-Gloss using the RUST-OLEUM Professional spray can paint, not a fan of this much shinines but it's there for protection only as it will get covered up with undercoat soon anyway

[Gregski]

and primered and painted the fender braces - there's a lot of doo dads

[Gregski]

a while back we've determined that there is no room for the mechanical fan

well even in order for me to run a stock but new aluminum radiator (radiators were tall and narrow back then, now they are short and wide) I have to mount it in front of the radiator frame not behind it, if you are standing in front of the truck, that's the only way to even fit an electric fan in between it and the water pump pulley

so in order to mount the radiator fan in front of the radiator frame I had to chop and roll the bottom grille piece. This happens to be a very unique grille limited only to 54 and early 55 years, I believe the earlier grilles allowed for way more real estate behind them, oh well, I love this grille

I believe rolling it over like that will keep some of it's integrity, I wish I had a shrinking machine

[Father&son56project]

Good progress Gregski. A few posts up you mentioned switching to plastic media for that tumbler. Did you try it yet? I am curious because I received one of those tumblers as a gift, and found that it just didn't do much. I switched back to using my hillbilly tumbler* which is loud, but works like a charm.

Stephan

*Hillbilly Tumbler: Bolt an electric palm sander to the bottom of an old paint can. Toss in your cruddy parts and some sand. Hang the paint pan by its handle, turn on the sander, walk away for an hour, return to perfectly clean parts.

[8man]

That's a lot of progress Gregski!

[Gregski]

Originally Posted by 8man

That's a lot of progress Gregski!

Thanks Robert, not bad for the one arm bandit, ha ha. I also custom tinted the windows in my non insulated West facing garage door, which heats up to 3,750°F every afternoon!

[dsraven]

cool, you got the dark limo tint for fords, matches the paper bag you gotta wear over your head when you drive a ford, so nobody knows it was you driving, haha.

[Gregski]

Originally Posted by Father&son56project

Good progress Gregski. A few posts up you mentioned switching to plastic media for that tumbler. Did you try it yet? I am curious because I received one of those tumblers as a gift, and found that it just didn't do much. I switched back to using my hillbilly tumbler* which is loud, but works like a charm.

Stephan

So glad you followed up Stephan. Yes I tried tumbling using the blue mystery rocks as I call 'em, ha ha and though they generate some sort of dust in the tumbler bowl I am hugely disappointed with the way they do NOT remove rust, not to my satisfaction anyway. I ran it for like 6 or 8 hours, hewk maybe more, checking on the hardware being cleaned every 2 hours or so but not even turning it off, just shoving my hand in there and pulling out a bit and examining it.

Here were the thoughts going through my head:

1. Maybe I did not waste my life spending upteen hours cleaning all those bolts in the past with a wire wheel, ha ha (4.5" angle grinder wire wheels will run you $20 in the big box stores, and $10 online) I can clean a larger bolt with a wire wheel in a minute or so either in a vice or holding it in vice grips so I can rotate it, don't need 10 hours of tumbling, granted you can feed the "Beast" couple handfuls of bolts at once.

2. How much brand new hardware could I've bought for the $185 I spent on this thing!!! ha ha (reason I did not go this route is that some hardware is irreplaceable and also I do not trust the aftermarket steel, it's junk - I'm looking at you LMC Truck)

Originally Posted by Father&son56project

*Hillbilly Tumbler: Bolt an electric palm sander to the bottom of an old paint can. Toss in your cruddy parts and some sand. Hang the paint pan by its handle, turn on the sander, walk away for an hour, return to perfectly clean parts.

I'm buying what you're selling, got a pic?

The reason I already had the plastic media is because I've done did something similar only using an old quart sized plastic Folgers coffee can attached to a 1/2" heavy duty drill, but it didn't work too well and now I think we can blame this stupid fake media.

LESSONS LEARNED so far...

Even if the tumbler do clean your parts it don't leave them shinny, (think media blasting large panels like fenders, etc.) the parts come out dull, so often times if your end game is Zinc plating you still need to wire wheel these bits to get them nice and smooth

It may be time to roll your own media like Josh did here in this there video [spoiler alert: using quick dry aka cat litter and walnut shells]:

Harbor Freight 18 lb. Vibrating Bowl 1year Review

[LT7A]

Originally Posted by Father&son56project

*Hillbilly Tumbler: Bolt an electric palm sander to the bottom of an old paint can. Toss in your cruddy parts and some sand. Hang the paint pan by its handle, turn on the sander, walk away for an hour, return to perfectly clean parts.

This is brilliant.

[Gregski]

Originally Posted by Father&son56project

Good progress Gregski. A few posts up you mentioned switching to plastic media for that tumbler. Did you try it yet? I am curious because I received one of those tumblers as a gift, and found that it just didn't do much. I switched back to using my hillbilly tumbler* which is loud, but works like a charm.

Stephan

*Hillbilly Tumbler: Bolt an electric palm sander to the bottom of an old paint can. Toss in your cruddy parts and some sand. Hang the paint pan by its handle, turn on the sander, walk away for an hour, return to perfectly clean parts.

Hi Stephan tried a new media today and thought you and others may get a kick out of it, don't let the pics fool yeah it cleans the clean stuff, ha ha, doesn't really do much on the heavily rusty bits, also it breaks down and turns to powder

and to be fair to the walnut shell and the blue moon rocks, I only ran this for a fraction of the time so like 3 or 4 hours

[Father&son56project]

Gregski, that "satin" coating looks just fine to me. As for the new tumbler media, nice try!!! Eventually we will find something that makes those overprised gizmos actually work. As much as I love the results from the hillbilly tumbler, it's horribly loud. I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with next!

Stephan

[Gregski]

Originally Posted by Father&son56project

Gregski, that "satin" coating looks just fine to me. As for the new tumbler media, nice try!!! Eventually we will find something that makes those overprised gizmos actually work. As much as I love the results from the hillbilly tumbler, it's horribly loud. I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with next!

Stephan

ha ha, yup, I have one more Ace up my sleeve!

[LT7A]

Originally Posted by Father&son56project

Gregski, that "satin" coating looks just fine to me. As for the new tumbler media, nice try!!! Eventually we will find something that makes those overprised gizmos actually work. As much as I love the results from the hillbilly tumbler, it's horribly loud. I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with next!

In my experience with paint, both hobby and commercially, satin and semi-gloss are often close to interchangeable. In their gradations from flat to high gloss some companies list satin before semi and others list semi before satin. Are you picturing matte finish in your mind Gregski? If you remember that satin jacket you had back in the 70s (when you were like three :), it's definitely shiny.

Hey Stephan, maybe you can figure out a way to mount that paint can inside the housing for the shaker that didn't work very well. Stuff some batt insulation in there around the can and let 'er rip. Should cut down on the noise somewhat.

[Gregski]

so it was out with the fake blue moon rocks and time to try a 3rd type of media, no idea what this is, it came with the FREE blasting cabinet I got

FYI: I vacuumed out all the dust because I couldn't take off the blue plastic container cause the stupid walnut shells got stuck in the plastic wingnut and jammed the threads, design failure!

Note: the blue rocks tumbled the loudest this black metal looking shavings stuff is much more quiet

... see you all in a couple of hours ;-)

[Gregski]

... two hours later, more disappointing results

[8man]

I've got a tumbler from HF that I've used with various media. Black Beauty from Tractor Supply seems to do a little better job, but the blast cabinet with glass beads does a great job of getting rid of the rust, paint and scale, but then as stated before they are "RAW" steel and you have to do something with them. I've painted them on the Cherokee, and will again on the trucks.

[joedoh]

I use evaporust from cardboard freight. I found an old 8M FARM TRUCK tag in the dirt at my honey hole, probbably been there 40-50 years, evaporust showed me there was still white paint on the tag with blue paint on the letters, I took before and after pictures, I will find them.

I used it on some gmc head bolts that sat in a truck with no hood and no valve cover and they look like brand new bolts from the foundry, no kidding!

[Gregski]

Originally Posted by joedoh

I use evaporust from cardboard freight. I found an old 8M FARM TRUCK tag in the dirt at my honey hole, probbably been there 40-50 years, evaporust showed me there was still white paint on the tag with blue paint on the letters, I took before and after pictures, I will find them.

I used it on some gmc head bolts that sat in a truck with no hood and no valve cover and they look like brand new bolts from the foundry, no kidding!

yup, I tried it, and I swear they must have a different formula for California cause I did not have the same luck as you, it would not remove a bugger off a finger, what I've been using is that Phosphoric acid from Home Depot, I don't know why I haven't thunk to dunk the nuts and bolts in it till now, LOL

[Gregski]

ok this is like 6 or 7 hours later, I honestly don't know what to think, as this is after three days of tumping close to 30 hours (sorry neighboors)

the reason I spread them out into two batches is because I only care about the grille metal screws on the left, I don't care about the nuts, bolts, and washers on the right, I plan on using nice brand new black 5/16th body bolts where they went

but the grille on the '54 is the purdiest thing since pig tailed Bonnie in 4th grade, so I am geeking out on it, hope you understand - I think I may be short a few screws, ha ha, so if you gots some rusty ones and those U clips I'll gladly buy them off you, please PM me (I don't like the new versions of 'em)