Thanks for the comments guys!
Dendoc - the bloke used to have them in a Cafe on the Island, then put them in a shed (one end open) and they sat there stacked on top of one another for about 7 or 8 years from what i can gather - attracting moisture, rodents, possums and all sorts of other nasties! He had ideas of getting them going, but i doubt he would have. All the machines so far have problems in the 240V section, most boards have issues and you can see the resto work that needs doing!
Have put quite a few hours in today and afternoons the last week. Finished stripping the cabinet decals and headbox. Knocked the base out as it was all swollen, as was the rear of the headbox
The first job was to clean up the possum mess and crud. While it looks disgusting, its not that hard to remove with the right stuff. First hit was with orange stain remover, let it sit for a few minutes, then used a cabinet scraper (in the left of photo) to scrape the bulk up.
After this, i then sprayed it with Nifti, and then wiped off with a rag. Honestly, Nifti is one of the best cleaners i have ever come across - the area in front of the bottle is what the rest was like before spraying with Nifti and wiping off!
Then went to work with builders bog.
There was a lot of areas where the cabinet was delaminating - just a few mm on the bottom edge, so its no point going to the effort of doing work and leaving stuff that will get worse in time to come. So i chipped back the areas where it was delaminating, then filled with bog, and sanded. Its a fairly time consuming process as i never seem to get it all done in one or two batches. The stuff goes of very quickly (normally within a few minutes its not really workable), so it means you have to go quick, but the beauty is that it can be sanded within 30 mins (20 mins if you add a bit more hardener). I use a round random orbital sander and it makes life a lot easier than the old 1/3 sheet rectangular one i had, due to the fact this one rotates as well as vibrates - makes things heaps quicker. I used 80 grit paper to level the bog, then 120 and 240.
A couple of shots of the cabinet and headbox, all sanded and bogged and ready to be hit with spray putty. I use this to fill in any wood grain or small dings that get missed with the builders bog. Talking to a bloke in the paint shop, he reckons its probably overkill, and i could get away with a cheaper (and easier to use) car primier undercoat that has reasonable build properties, but i've got 4L of spray putty, so will use it first, then try the other stuff with later machines.
