Week of January 18th, 2009 Dent
Removal:
Some body work is performed on the Rockwell Model 20 bandsaw.
So I came up with the solution of welding a rigid piece of steel (unistrut type stuff) behind the sheet metal. Here the piece has been cut and prepped.
I marked a line on the high side of where the unistrut will go (inaccessible with a welder) and drilled a line of holes to act as improvised spot welds. Then prepped the inside for welding with a flex sanding disk in the angle grinder.
The piece is clamped in place and welded bottom and top.
Quick lesson, don't forget to remove the plastic pads from the clamps before welding:
Now, reasonably flat and dent free, the area is ground to bare metal, smoothed with Bondo and primed.
The adjacent panel had a couple of dents as well. I was able to flex them out with a hydraulic bottle jack from behind, (that ain't no Toyota sheet metal...) then finish up with more Bondo.
Some body work is performed on the Rockwell Model 20 bandsaw.
Before proceeding too far into stripping and re-building the bandsaw, and while the beast is on it's side, there's some body work to do. The steel column of the frame had a substantial dent at the base. Matter of fact, the whole front of the base was pretty beat up, and I have visions of Mutt and Jeff pushing the machine across the factory floor with the blades of a forklift.
The space behind the column is so narrow, (mid right of photo, where the red strap is hooked on) that there wasn't any way to apply force (hydraulic, pounding with a hammer, etc.) I found that while I could draw and hold the dent flat with C clamps, the metal flexed right back.So I came up with the solution of welding a rigid piece of steel (unistrut type stuff) behind the sheet metal. Here the piece has been cut and prepped.
I marked a line on the high side of where the unistrut will go (inaccessible with a welder) and drilled a line of holes to act as improvised spot welds. Then prepped the inside for welding with a flex sanding disk in the angle grinder.
The piece is clamped in place and welded bottom and top.
Quick lesson, don't forget to remove the plastic pads from the clamps before welding:
Now, reasonably flat and dent free, the area is ground to bare metal, smoothed with Bondo and primed.
The adjacent panel had a couple of dents as well. I was able to flex them out with a hydraulic bottle jack from behind, (that ain't no Toyota sheet metal...) then finish up with more Bondo.