[afx]

I bought a jointer and the head had a ton of paint on it for some reason (the way people treat their tools :/)

I was sanding it off when I got the awesome idea to dissemble the head, mount it on my lathe, and hit it with my turning sandpaper. So I opened up my Nova chuck, stuck the shaft that turns the head inside and clamped it down, put the live center on the other end and I was good to go.

My lathe has an adjustable speed so I can slow it down to 400rpm or speed it up to 2,000. I lowered the tension on the belt to the point it would have slipped off if I lowered it anymore. I turned it on standing about 5 feet away, it spun at about 5 rpm :laughing: I mustered up the cojones to speed it up a little bit, because of the weight it actually was really easy to control the speed. It was also dead centered so there was no vibration. I hit it lightly with 120 grit to get the paint off, then went up to 800. Now it looks brand new :laughing:

I thought I would repent for my stupidity to you guys :laughing: The entire time I just kept saying "this is so f***ing dumb"

It was impossible to get it clean by itself, the head is grooved which made it difficult to get the paper into.

 

[NetDoc]

I love solutions like that.

 

[GeorgeC]

Why are you so self deprecating. What was stupid about what you did?

George

 

[cabinetman]

You were right to be very cautious. Fortunately no horror stories. Why not just clean the paint off with a stripper, acetone, or lacquer thinner.

.

 

[afx]

Why are you so self deprecating. What was stupid about what you did?

George

Because if the head had moved even a fraction of an inch and become off-center, it probably would have been thrown into my face. The thing weighs about 15 pounds.

 

[afx]

You were right to be very cautious. Fortunately no horror stories. Why not just clean the paint off with a stripper, acetone, or lacquer thinner.

.

Because what fun would that have been? Heh, there was a little surface schmootz as well I wanted to get rid of. I don't know exactly what it was, it looked like rust but it could have been sap.