Well, it was howling a gale outside today but I've reassembled my blasting/spraying booth inside my garage so I was as snug as a bug in a rug (whatever that means).
CALL ME 'DEXTER'...
I got a lot more of the chassis blasted back to bare metal today. It's a slow process though, primarily because of the copious quantities of black bitumen underseal gummed all over the place.
I've now taken to doing a couple of minutes blasting followed by a couple of minutes power-drill wire brushing the bitumen. The wire brush doesn't remove it, but it spreads it out thin and heats it up while the compressor gets the blasting pot back up to maximum pressure. Once it's warm and thin the blaster will then strip it off in a few seconds rather than taking ages.
I'm sure a pro' blasting rig wouldn't struggle with the bitumen but my amateur setup is doing the job without causing any unnecessary damage. It's slow 'n' gentle rather than fast and indiscriminate. You pays your money, you takes your choice.
A few more holes have appeared in the chassis today, but they really don't look quite so daunting now and I'm going to have a crack at welding everything up myself.
Won't be for a while though as I reckon there's at least another full days' blasting to be done tomorrow, then it's back to work again.
