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Looks good Sean! I think there is enough room in there to fab in a stone...

Damon wrote:Looks good Sean! I think there is enough room in there to fab in a stone...

Haha! Yeah wouldn't be too hard. That might be a project for the future though!

I think I'm done stripping paint. I've got the entire exterior stripped, and most of the interior. There are places that are tight and hard to get to, and honestly I'm just sick of spraying the paint stripper and getting it on my exposed skin (burns like hell) and sick of scraping. I've got all the paint off the rusty metal, so I'm not worried about the existing paint come off. The POR-15 will take care of things from here!

Tomorrow will be a late day at work probably, so looks like thursday I can do the POR-15 on the main body, and do the final top coat on the catch basins and doors/panels.

I sprayed most of the top coat yesterday, with just the two catch basins left to spray.

The color is awesome, but I didn't spray it thick enough to get a nice smooth coating, it setup slightly textured. I might order some more paint and re-spray it a little thicker, I haven't decided yet.

Lots of progress, the end is in sight!

I finished spraying the top coat tonight, and I thinned it a bit... that made it cure MUCH smoother. Really wishing I had thinned it when I sprayed the main body cause its really textured. Oh well, lesson-learned. It's not worth buying more paint and re-spraying it, I just want to be all done with this project and move on.

So with that said I finished the paint tonight, got the new knobs installed on the various access panels, put on the TOKO logo decal (have a buddy with a vinyl shop who cut out the decal for me). I installed the drive axle, tension/skew adjuster, and flat belt running surface. Tomorrow I'll get the drive drum and pulley on, put the motor in, and start on the wiring.

Pictures!

wow. beauty.

Wow looks better than brand new

All done! I wrapped up the wiring this morning, fired it up, and ground a pair of skis. It works like a charm! What a project, amazing how fast it all went together once the paint work was done. Now its time to make some skis!











Now when all is said and done, I've probably got $400 put into this I would say. The machine itself was just $100, then about $200 in paint (including the cleaner, rust inhibitor, base coat, top coat, and primer), and probably another $100 for new stainless hardware, new knobs, new relays, and other odds and ends. Still, not bad, it won't ever rust again, and should outlast me!

I've got a question for anybody who has used a machine like this in a shop... on the back side of the machine, there is an access panel to this tray thing (its the door with the piggy on it). You access the drive pulley through there, which is good and fine and all. But its the tray bit I don't get... there is a fitting at the top where water comes in, and then a drain tube that goes from that tray down into the lower catch basin. Then there is a valve with a knob on the very top of the machine to open/close the water going into that tray.

I'm at a complete loss as to why you'd want water in there?

Can't help with the tray thing but fantastic restoration job!

drawer is place to run a pre-filter before it gets to the return pump?

Time to think about that now?... Very nice job indeed!
Ask TOKO

Sean do you have a pic of the tray? The tray isn't anywhere near the belt?

The only thing I'm thinking is if the model that comes with a stone on the side uses the same chassis as yours, making that tray hold coolant for the stone. Dunno though.

Without going out and taking a new picture, here are the best two pictures of it.





It's the area on the upper-left in those pictures. The giant hole is how you get to the drive pulley. It's hard to see but in the upper-right of that area there is a little fitting with a small bit of hard metal line, thats where the water comes from. Then in the bottom right (also can't be seen in these pictures) there is a drain tube that runs inside all the way over to the bottom catch basin.

On the very top of the machine there are two valves, they can be seen in this picture (the two black knobs on the right side)



The one towards the end with the skew adjuster is what turns on the belt sprayer, but the other one (closest to me taking that picture) turns on the water in the tray thing that I can't figure out.

I'll email Toko and see if they know.

For anybody needing custom belts made for homemade grinders or otherwise, I ordered some belts and I'm very pleased with them!

I know of two places online to get custom belts made, http://www.customsandingbelts.com/ and http://www.econaway.com/

They both have similar belt materials and quick turn around times, but I went with Econoway just because it was every so slightly cheaper.

I ordered three different belts, an aluminum oxide 80 grit, a aluminum zirconia 80 grit, and ceramic 120 grit. Including shipping it was about $50 for all 3 belts (the ceramic belt is a little more expensive than the others). I had the belts at my house within 2 days!!!

The 80 grit belts will be good for brand new skis I've pressed, and for the initial edge grind (before filing) but I think they might be too course for final base grinding. The ceramic belt gives an almost stone-grind finish, its awesome! I wish there was a finer grit for the ceramic, 120 is as fine as you can get, but it'll do fine.

So there you go, anybody needing custom belts, Econoway is awesome, cheap, and fast (and I imagine the other place is similar) and can do any size you need (the belts on my machine are 7-7/8" wide x 80" length).

I've just been grinding with straight water right now, but I have some 'Kleen Kut' grinding emulsion coming from Sun Valley Ski Tools which should make the grinding a little bit better, plus prevent rust.

I should say that the aluminum oxide and aluminum zirconia belts were about the same price between the two sites, but the ceramic belt was about $45 through customsandingbelts.com, where as it was only $18 through econaway.