Shopsmith Forums

Hello
I am rebuilding a 1956 shopsmith that I found on the craigslist.
My friend Dave who has had one for 25 years said it shows no sign of use.
But it was not perfect the legs had quite a bit of rust on the one set,
Sanded them down to bare metal use a rust treatment then zinc oxide, then etching primer to bite into the zinc oxide, then a primer fill {a few coats] then used 400 grit to sand smooth.
I used etching primer on the whole machine to bite into the paint.
but used a wax and grease remover before I primed it

I added pictures of the colors and etching primer and clear coat
{It is a sickness} as someone wise said!!!
Looking at buying a SS 10er everything works for a resto

I find the self etching primer is really worth the price and time to apply. It is the only primer that I have not had rust break through after a few years so far at this time. Power coating really leaves a nice hard finish that is very chip resistance. I dug a power coated heastock casing out of a pile of loose of Shopsmith parts laying loose for years and can find no scratch marks on the heastock casing today.

Good luck with all the painting.

Bill

after cleaning up the headstock and putting new bearings in it, I think it turned out quite nice.Two coats of clear
a picture of the rusty leg cleaned up in primer ready for paint
Thanks for the reply Bill

Looking good. Clear coat, now that is fancy.

Finished painting the rest of the parts, now have to put it back together.
there is a picture of the rusty leg finished and painted on the piece of plywood.

Every time I see one of these restores, I'm struck by how much I prefer the green paint to the grey. I believe Shopsmith should go back to the green color scheme for the new machines they are selling.

algale wrote:Every time I see one of these restores, I'm struck by how much I prefer the green paint to the grey. I believe Shopsmith should go back to the green color scheme for the new machines they are selling.

Nah! Gold! Copper!:D

Looks beautiful - good job! Can you elaborate a bit on this part:

"use a rust treatment then zinc oxide, then etching primer to bite into the zinc oxide, then a primer fill {a few coats]"

I'm not very up to speed on metal painting techniques, so not sure of the various options beyond the typical Krylon paint and primer sold at our local Ace Hardware. What sort of rust treatment and what do you mean by zinc oxide? Is etching primer something sold at auto parts supply places or somewhere other than hardware stores? What is primer fill? Once you did all this and then sanded with 400grit, did you then paint with your main color? From your description I couldn't tell if you did another coat of the etching primer? And what exactly is clear coat? I know it's used on cars - is this something for durability? Do you get this stuff in spray cans at auto parts stores?

Thanks for any input you can offer - I'm not far away from stripping down my machine to pretty it up. So far, all I have is three cans of the SS grey spray paint and want to make sure I approach this correctly.

JPG40504 wrote:Nah! Gold! Copper!:D

Boy, I gotta agree with the goldie paint scheme. Who says that power tools have to be bland? At the very least, they could go with hammered matallic silvery stuff.

The rust teatment should be sold at a automotive store, sometimes called metal prep, the zinc oxide {primer} is called cold galvanizing, at some stores.
Ectching primer should be at your automotive store that has body work supplies
Best of luck