Thursday, January 22, 2009

Moving On...

I discovered some rust removal solution which was left over from a previous project. I tried applying a small amount on the surface to see how it reacts to the metal of the flywheel. After about 10 minutes, much of the rust dissolved, leaving very marks and a clean surface!

The flwheels were prepared for treatment by removing the oil retaining felt pads, and completely cleaned of all grease and oil. The grease between the back of the flywheel and thrust plate had hardened and stuck to the flywheel and had to be gently scrubbed away.






I next tried the solution on the belt riding surface and carefully monitored progress. After about 30 minutes, the rusted capstan flywheel turned out like this...




You can see the line where the flywheel was out of the solution and the difference prior to the treatment.

One member had posted about being careful about the diameter of the flywheel. This is very important because a changed dimension or flat spot can lead to poor tape handling.


Here is another picture of the flywheel showing clearly before and after treatment. Even with treatment, some deep pitting was still there. The rest of the smudge like traces are stains. The flywheel is much smoother now that the deep rust is all gone.

The other flywheel was more challanging because of the step. For this, a different vessel was used to give more exposure of the treatment fluid to the belt riding area.

After both flywheels were treated, the next step was to remove the remaining stains on the flywheel and make the belt riding surface as smooth as possible. This was done by gently buffing the surfacing with metal polish, by hand. After slowly polishiing away the stains, turning frequently and keeping the surfaces even, the following resulted:



The second flywheel was also cleaed and buffed. Both flywheels were checked carefully for any dings, scratches, marks or flat spots. Some pitting was still present but these will not affect the belt or performance and it is best to leave them as they are. The resulting surface is much smoother at has the right surface to give the driving belt a good grip.

The flywheels are ready to literally roll!






Now its time to move on to the rest of the transport...but first to get some sleep!

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