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I was out in the garage

jlaird

Great Pumpkin
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And the only things I have left to do here are bolts and nuts.

Boy are they a pain to clean. Sure do shine up nice when put in the cadium plater though.

Tis a slow slow process. Wire brush to bare metal. Degrease and wire up and put in plater for a few min or so. Then dip in clean water and dry. Can only it seems do about 20 or so at a time and the cleaning is a bear. Watch your fingers. hehe.

However, even this is progress and satisfying. Think I will also try the top of the windshield motor gear box, that may come up nice as well. Have not tried anything of that size yet although I did some fulcurm bolts that look like new.
 
I put all my bolts and nuts in a 5 gallon bucket then poured about 1/2 gallon of the purple cleaner on them and then spun the bucket back and forth for about 30 min then let it set all night and the next day dumped them all out on an old window screen and hosed them off with a garden hose and then put them in another bucket and poured in a little acetone and shook them up and poured them back out on the (now dry) screen and this removed all the water when it dried. I didn't plate them, I'm not that fancy. I just paint all the exposed parts of the bolts and nuts as I go with rustoleum and a tiny paint brush.
 
Well you may not plate but you got clean nuts and bolts for sure. Think I will try that with whats left. Nice tip.
 
I've got a nut-n-bolts question. I haven't tried this but wondered... what if you bought a small quantity of fine, sharp, sandblast media and put that along with a handful of (degreased) nuts & bolts in a rock tumbler overnight. Would the result be too much wear?
 
No clue but I would try with some stuff you do not care about as a test and would check every few hours or so.
 
[ QUOTE ]
I've got a nut-n-bolts question. I haven't tried this but wondered... what if you bought a small quantity of fine, sharp, sandblast media and put that along with a handful of (degreased) nuts & bolts in a rock tumbler overnight. Would the result be too much wear?

[/ QUOTE ] It might be cheaper just to buy some new bolts. I bought about a hundred each of 1/4 fine and 5/16 fine bolts from a nut and bolt dealer that I used a lot of. I would be afraid that the tumbler might hurt the threads. If I was going to do that I would screw enough nuts on the bolts to cover all the threads to protect them before tumbling but that would be a lot of trouble. The purple stuff can be bought by the gallon at wal-mart, etc and does a pretty good job. It kind of etches the metal and makes it take paint good.
 
I base my decision about new/old fasteners on what I'm doing and the "need" for originality.

Do any of you remember the British TV program "Lovejoy" starring Ian McShane (forgive my spelling)? He was an art expert (ex-con man and forger). In one episode he was looking at a motorcycle from 1910 and appraising it for the owner. The discussion came up about 'when does an antique cease being an antique'. If all the fasteners holding your 1910 motor cycle together are from the year 2000... is it still an antique. It's the old story of "my grandfather's axe"... the head's been replaced twice and the handle three times... but it's my grandfather's axe.

To me, re-using original fasteners is taking originality to the extreme for LBCs... but I'm curious what the rest of you think.
 
So many strange fastners, it is just easier to plate them. Not a big deal in my mind as to orginality but easier. If I could buy a kit of all the fastiners required by type and quanity I would use that.
 
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