Kawi2strokes.com Forum

Agreed!

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Nils Menten
Tucson, Arizona, USA

I do vapor blasting! http://www.restocycle.com
Ikon Shocks: http://www.ikonshocksusa.com

Nils, if you end up with an extra piece of aluminum you can play with when you vapor blast again, would you please try the Brillo pad on the vapor blasted surface, and lets see what it looks like. I have no idea, really curious, though.

OK, time for an update - we have been busy on a number of projects, having fun too.

Did a fun project for a customer with holed XR600 cases: He bought a used set of good cases, had them shipped directly to us and we vapor blasted them and sent them along to him. He was pretty psyched.







Helped a local customer with his cafe build - pulled his engine from his bike, soda blasted it, painted it, vapor blasted the valve and sidecovers, put it back in the bike. He was also pretty psyched







Have been dabbling in some automotive work - this is a throttle body and valve cover for a Miata that was dropped into a Sunbeam...





...and an intake for a Sunbeam (I think?)





These folks were (you guessed it!) PRETTY PSYCHED!

Met a very cool cat at a swap meet - an airhead guru. He sent me his transmission case in advance of a tech day he was hosting for a bunch of guys.








I confess I have fallen into deep like with American aluminum, as used by Harley Davidson. We masked these cases to preserve the Glyptal and blasted them on their exterior:





And nobody doesn't love a Honda CBX. By 1979 Honda was using some really nice quality metal and it is very much on display after vapor blasting it spotless:









Shall we have Italian? Tasty Moto Guzzi valve covers are on the menu:





Over on the other side of the shop, we are nearly finished with the restoration of another lovely little Honda CB400F:



...and we recently installed a vibratory polisher, aka a 'tumbling tank'. With this we can restore a smoother, shinier finish to sidecovers and wheel hubs and similar parts after vapor blasting that is much closer to the original finish. There's no charge for this service, at the customer's election.



Vapor blasted:



...and then tumbled:



And THAT is what's been going on lately at RestoCycle

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Nils Menten
Tucson, Arizona, USA

I do vapor blasting! http://www.restocycle.com
Ikon Shocks: http://www.ikonshocksusa.com

Absolutely beautiful.

Yes, that's impressive work.

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If it surges, that's normal, upshift.

Wow, nice work!

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http://kawatriple.com/wtf/

Im curious what would it do to an old set of chambers?

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http://kawatriple.com/wtf/

Thank you for the good words fellas.

With nothing to lose, I put a set of chrome steel rims in a few weeks ago, and it scoured off the rust and crud, at the expense of a little shine. Haven't tried to polish it back yet. I guess it dep[emds on what the chambers were made of, but in general, it will scour most anything down to clean, although it will hasten the removal of old and failing plating and coatings too.

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Nils Menten
Tucson, Arizona, USA

I do vapor blasting! http://www.restocycle.com
Ikon Shocks: http://www.ikonshocksusa.com

Will it remove paint and surface rust from steel?

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http://kawatriple.com/wtf/

By the way I meant to reply to your prior post - I DID make some more tests with your technique post vapor blasting, and I have photos of it too. However I don't have hot water other than what I heat in my ultrasonic, so it wasn't really a test of the whole technique you described. So I don't think I reached the full potential of it yet. But anyway, here it is.

Here's a thrice thrashed part. You can see evidence of prior masking, but at this moment I have re-re-re vapor blasted it. Then I masked the left side, and went after it with BRONZE wool, not the steel wool you suggested. I had it in my head that the bronze was better because it would not lead to impregnation of steel in the part and was softer.



Then I wrote on it with a Sharpy/Sharpie . Which is pretty much a worst-case scenario for staining.





Then I tried to remove the Sharpy with acetone. There wasn't much difference between the two sides.



Then I rescrubbed it with STEEL wool, and wiped it again.



And none of this was done while holding it under running hot water. Which I think was essential to your technique. Which I have now bastardized. But even so, there was validation of a few things: Namely that it needs to be steel wool, and not bronze, and for sure, even without the hot water, the steel wool is clearly sealing the metal better than vapor blasting does alone. And the finish looks excellent. When I think I have this nailed (read: I follow your instructions and quit messing with it) I will share it with my customers too.

An old-timer shook his cane at me (literally) at a swap meet a few weeks back when we were discussing steel wool on aluminum, predicting pestilence and doom, and so I am actually going to see if I can provoke it. I'm going to burnish a part with steel wool, then soak it in salt water and leave it in a damp tote with water with the lid closed. And we will see if his predictions of blooming rust spots on the aluminum actually happens.

So I'm not done experimenting with this stuff yet, but I didn't blow you off either. This is a promising avenue for exploration and I appreciate you turning me on to it.

N.

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Nils Menten
Tucson, Arizona, USA

I do vapor blasting! http://www.restocycle.com
Ikon Shocks: http://www.ikonshocksusa.com