Wadkin GZ Stroke Sander

[M.McKenna]

Hope to see in person one day. Just chiming in so you know I’m following you

Thanks Jack!

Yesterday I took the 7 foot table rails to my buddies machine shop to clean them up on his Colchester lathe. He bored the ends so we could use the center tail stock to hold the ends. There is some pitting and a little wear on the top edge but very little. Once in the chuck I used 80x sanding belt, then emery cloth, cleaned the worst off with a rag, then brake cleaner, then hit it with the burgundy Scotch pad. All in under an hour. Also coated them in Boeshield right on the lathe. Have been soaking the head rails with rust buster to loosen the 2" hollow rails so they can be cleaned up on the lathe too.

[jgarrett forsberg]

Hope to see in person one day. Just chiming in so you know I’m following you

[gdtrfg]

Sorry, Didn't see the date stamp when I opened this. You have had this for a while alright, but in my defense, you were painting the base 5 minutes after I started reading.

[ethanslocan]

What r u going to be testing it out on mike ? Doors? Table slabs? . Whatever u have going? I'm sure it'll slay it for ya.

[M.McKenna]

Erik the puzzle of handling and moving the various parts is the fun part. The bigger they are the more you have to be sure you don't loose control and find yourself in a bad spot. I find myself using the chain block more and more. I have been considering some heavy dollies for each end rather than pallet jacks.

Paul, not sure I would call this a resto. Its more like basic maintenance before reassembly. Its a huge machine and I haven't got time to take it down to bits. If it affects basic function then I will deal with it. It will need to be running in a month or less.. to be useful on the next shop job.Just could not see getting the underside painted for quite a while if it was all reassembled so decided to get er done now. Who knows it may be another 60 years before the next guy does the same. I just wanted to make sure the foundation was solid before getting it all back together. It would have been easy to weld in any repair at this point but proved not to be required.

Not sure what you mean by speed, I have had this one for almost 4 years waiting to be put to work. The advantage of storing them in a dry place indoors, and under cover is there is very little degrade while waiting to be put back to work.

[gdtrfg]

Great scoop Mike. Are you trying to out-Mark Mark with the speed of your resto? Looking good.

[furnman]

Great stuff mike, looking good. We call them pad sanders over here, just love these machines and always fancied a wadkin one but rare over here. Looking forward to seeing it running.

[mikeddd]

Looking good Mike.

[ErikM]

Be easier maybe if you slip a movers dolly under each end but quite top heavy when all together. Get the fire dept to stop by when ready to move it into place. LOL

[M.McKenna]

Thanks Rob.

At six foot tall with a narrow foot, even moving it with a pallet jack or two will be a challenge.

[iamtooler]

Off to a good start Mike, it will not be so easy to manoeuvre once it is reassembled.
Rob

[M.McKenna]

The underside only had surface rust and cleaned up easier than the top. Wire brush wheel and hand sanding. Clean off the dust and ready for paint.



Had a can of red on hand.



Rolled it back upright on the chain block, taped off the machined surfaces and gave the top a good coat.

[M.McKenna]

The base is actually 5/16" steel and not cast. At 10'6" long and 28" inches wide, I guessed it would be over 500 lbs. So I built a cradle before rolling it over using the chain hoist. That way it would be stable on the cart while I worked on the underside.


Having a hoist makes all the heavy lifting easy, gradual and slow.




Once rolled over I took it outside for a clean up with a wire wheel on the buffer

[M.McKenna]

Have some jobs in the near future that will require lots of sanding so I decided it was time to finally get the GZ back together. Started with a hand scrape and brush to pull all the loose paint off the base. Almost the entire top peeled easy.




Seen as the top peeled so easy I suspected the underside may have issues, so I slipped the camera underside, and this confirmed something should be done asap.

[furnman]

Re: Wadkin GZ Stroke Sander

Hi Mike, I am tempted but have put my self under a strict no more machinery buying at the moment, I think this is a really nice machine but its big and you will need alot of space, very few fully cast pad sanders left . I would love to get rid of my bursgreen pad sander for this one, thinking about that , emmm