The pros and cons of my blasting rig

After a lot of research I decided to go for Aluminium Oxide (60 – 80 grit) as my blasting media. I was able to pick up a 20kg tub locally and added the whole lot to the hopper. I blasted these small inspection hatch pieces to get a feel for it:

I was delighted with the results as the surfaces are amazingly clean and it seems to be gentle to the healthy metal under the rust. Plus, the embossed factory numbers are preserved in amazing condition, something that a wire wheel would have no doubt damaged or partially erased. For a before/after comparison, here is a vent cover from one the heater channels with a thick layer of paint and crud all over it:

After a quick sandblast:

And finally everything gets the usual lick of primer:

However, not all is as good as it seems. There are a couple of annoying problems with my current set-up. Firstly, my little 2.5Hp compressor cannot keep up with the air demands of shot blasting. It has a tiny 24L tank and it is just not enough to hold a sufficient volume of air. In fact, I can only blast for about 8 seconds then I have to wait for it to re-pressurise and this recovery time gets frustrating after a while. Having looked into my options I have identified 3 possible solutions:

1. A more powerful compressor – this would be ideal however for a hobbyist like me this does not make good economic sense because a big compressor that has the spec required is a LOT of cash!

2. Add an expansion tank – I could link a receiver tank to the compressor to increase the overall volume of compressed air at my disposal. This would allow me to a much longer blasting time, but on the flipside the recovery time would be equally longer.

3. Link two compressors in together in tandem – this I feel is the ideal solution. Basically I need to get another little cheap compressor and join it together with my current one with a ‘y’ connector. This would increase the overall tank size and recovery time. Best of all I could set the compressors to kick in at slightly different times (e.g: one starts when the pressure hits 90psi and the other when the pressure dips to 80psi).  

The second issue that I was encountering was the amount of dust being generated which obscured vision a lot quicker than I had anticipated. I think I will rig up a vacuum extraction system at the time I add a 2^nd compressor. In fact, I have an old vacuum cleaner that would be ideal for the task! Stayed tuned...

New toy!

Manged to bag myself this eBay bargain shot blast cabinet over the weekend:

Unfortunately it didn't come with the mesh screen (floor section) and the perspex window was all frosted up, but I thought a quick trip to my local DIY store would cure those minor problems. Unfortunately the shop didn't stock perspex or meshing! However, on the way back to the garage I came across some metal mesh dumped in a bush next to a bus stop - literally the perfect width as well! So, after a quick trim with the angle grinder and the persuation of a hammer to flatten it out, I had it sitting inside the cabinet perfectly snug! 

Now I have just got to get some blast media and it will be good to go (albeit with a slightly frosty viewing window)!  

EDIT (23/05/14): I now have some new Perspex (clear acylic/plexiglass) windows for the shot blast cabinet. I found that it was cheaper to order this stuff as a made to measure item online than it was to purchase a big sheet at a diy store, which would still need cutting down to size! The only real sting was the cost of postage – but I offset this cost by ordering 10 units at once, so this batch should last me some time!

Introducing...

My glamorous garage assistant:

So, I was delighted to got some much needed assistance last weekend in the form of my girlfriend, who turned out to be an absolute demon with the angle grinder and drill-mounted wire brush. Whoooop! Plus, she later confessed that she enjoyed working on the car – so I have a feeling that she is likely to become a regular fixture in this ongoing resto story...

Started with the inside of the rear quarter panels and got them primed up:

Then we began stripping the driver’s side front quarter:

A close-up of a couple of really crusty areas that made me shiver:

As usual there was a lot of filler slapped all over the place and a lot of tatty old repair patches slowly emerged from beneath the underseal:

Whilst my girlfriend battled on with the dirty work I decided to upgrade my front saw horse. Basically narrowed it to about a third of the original width and added some heavy duty braked casters to the bottom:

I actually ended up removing the top angled cross-brace sections as it was preventing the car from sitting back down on it correctly (forgot to factor-in the obvious!). Even without these sections it felt suitably sturdy and as the shell is now almost completely stripped of components I was not too concerned about the weight issue compromising the integrity of the structure.

It feels great to have a bit more working space around the front of the car now. I will get the rear saw horse sorted out next and then the shell should be fully maneuverable at last!

Die Autolüfter

Came across this little rarity recently whilst sifting through my box of miscellaneous vw parts:

It is a VDO/Braun ‘Autolüfter’ dash mountable fan and it was given to me 10 years ago by an old neighbor. I remember being out in the street one afternoon having just moved to Bristol and was tinkering away on the bug when a delightful chap came over and starting chatting to me about the old vw's that he had owned over the years. He suddenly recalled that he probably had a few old accessories kicking around in his attic and hurried off into a house a couple of doors down from where I used to live. He came back maybe 15-20 mins later with this lovely item that he wanted me to have and did not want anything for it in exchange. I never saw him again after that day and I have long since moved, but I still think about what a generous stranger he was! It is going to look great once it is all cleaned up and mounted in the center of the dash when this resto is eventually complete.

After some searching of the interweb I came across some images from the instruction manual. This great illustration shoes how and where the fan mounts on a Beetle dash:

The Reddening!

Pushed on with cleaning the inside of the shell this week. Finished stripping the crud off of all the fiddly areas in and around the boot section and gave it all the usual lick of primer:

Then moved onto the rear quarters. Made quite a mess when the grinder/wirebrush combo came into contact with the insulation material that was attached to the inner side of the outer skin:

The mashed-up residue got everywhere and because it is sticky by its own nature it had a habit of bonding itself to everything it landed on - including my head! Was quite a satisfying task though in a strange way. Once again, all the bare-metaled areas received a liberal coat of primer: 

Having grown sick of the sight of the awful patched-up area on the drivers side rear crossmember, I decided to action.... of the angle grinder kind:

I know it doesn't look like much of an improvement, but at least I have revealed what is left of the original metal and most significantly I have some good reference points to work off when I come to fabricating new patches. So, here's how things are currently looking in the back:

Still procrastinating on the shell

Finished cleaning up the rear valance and removed the remains of the tatty old seal lip: 

As always I gave the area a lick of primer:

Then I turned my attention and arsenal of wire brushes to the rear interior area. I did not know what I was going to find under all the rust, horsehair, glue residue and seal sealer:

There are the typical areas that will need patching such as the outer corners that curve around the wheel arches: 

And just below the rear window the was some corrosion that will need rectifying - I always remember the window seal being cracked, brittle and generally past its prime. I just wish that I would have had the sense to replace it before the bloody spongy moss started growing on top of it!

...but in all I was relatively relieved to discover that the whole boot section was in a fairly good state:

So, lots of fiddly sanding (which is still ongoing), but I am enjoying myself just plodding along on the shell. It is just a task that seems to fit my mood lately. Away from the garage I am on the lookout for a shot-blast cabinet so that I can strip some of the trickier parts (and there is far more of them than I first imagined!) - but to find anything that can contain parts of substantial bulk within the rather meager budget I have allocated is proving tough. So, I am weighing up my options and considering building one from scratch out of reclaimed wood. So, watch this space for a possible project tangent in the near future!

Cracking on with the shell

I have been hard at work over the past month stripping old paint and rust of the shell.

I started out (...and not yet finished) with the engine bay which has a lot of fiddly hard to access areas. I stripped what I could using an angle grinder mounted wire brush, then worked the tighter areas with a drill mounted wire brush then got right into the hardest of places using a rotary tool (I use a Draper one now as the Dremmel turned out to be as crap as their subsequent customer service!). 

Whilst working on the rear valance I uncovered an alarming amount of filler running down the left hand side. When I had taken everything back I could see that the area had buckled inwards, which in turn had caused some damage and creasing to some of the inner plates:

 
Based on the accounts of the original owners this would be consistent with a minor accident back in the 80's when a Mini slid into the back of the car due to icy road conditions. It is bizarre, but knowing the history of these damaged areas stops me from feel frustrated about the state of them!   

Anyway, following my valiant attempt of the engine bay (still in progress!) I moved onto drivers side rear window and again the little rotary tool wire brush was perfect for getting into those tight corners and underneath the drip rail:

And with a fresh coat of primer added: 

As I was on a roll I then bare metaled and primed a chunk of roof section: 

Not sure how to tackle the rear vent area yet, hence why I masked the area off and sprayed around it. 

More progress updates real soon...