Plan for today: sand blast five mgb wire wheels, tidy up, have some lunch then spray them with primer to stop them rusting again and spend the rest of the afternoon relaxing. Slight issue in that I've never tried sand blasting before, but how hard can it be?
Reality: instructions that came with the 'blaster are meagre to say the least. It took me four hours to figure out how it's supposed to work. First go, loads of blasting grit coming out of the nozzle but it was just pinging off the surface and not removing the rust or the paint. The tank also emptied 25kg of grit in about four minutes. After much head scratching and some trial and error I discovered you have to regulate the flow of grit out of the bottom of the tank by not fully opening the flow valve.
Once I'd got it set up right wey hey! Off we jolly well go.
TAKE ME TO YOUR LEADER...
It was still very laborious work, the wires are a really complex shape to sand blast with each one taking about an hour and a half to do properly, meaning I only finished two today. There's something quite satisfying about watching a nice, bare metal wheel emerge from within the encrustation of rust and old paint.
RESULT!
After a marathon clean up session I even managed a couple of coats of primer. I rather like the look of the wires in white. I've already bought silver wheel paint but I could change my mind yet...
I'm glad I tried the sand blaster on a small job first as it'll give me some confidence when I start on the bulkhead and chassis.
Back to work tomorrow so I'll finish the wheels later in the week if I can find the time.
