Reclaiming an old damaged CB550F2/K3 rotor cover

[Oddjob]

The other thing is, IF you have polished the outer cover on the 500/550 then even fitting a new cover would look a little odd, these will be polished BUT it's also possible to just satin polish them so they match the original finish. The 400 cover BTW is FAR brighter than the 500 version.

[McCabe-Thiele (Ted)]

Nice work Ken.👍👍👍

[philward]

What white paint did you use on those tank badges Ken?

[Oddjob]

Just some Humbrol model paint Phil, nothing special. I use Humbrol for most of the jobs like that, they have a nice colour range so you can get what colour looks closest to the original

[andy120t]

I used Humbrol model paint for some gold detailing on a large set of garden scales. They say outside in the rain and shine and snow for 20 years and the paint was still there - faded in places, but it hadn't washed off or disappeared.

[Sesman]

My personal preference is Hycote VW/Audi candy white.

[philward]

Just some Humbrol model paint Phil, nothing special. I use Humbrol for most of the jobs like that, they have a nice colour range so you can get what colour looks closest to the original

Thanks Ken - thats what I use

[Oddjob]

I use Humbrol on the markings on the switchgear I had ceramic coated, I got about 4 different orange and red colours to see what looked best when it was applied. The beauty of them is that they are fairly cheap and the pots are really small so you can have loads of colours without them taking up much space.

[Oddjob]

Forgot to mention, burned out another Dremel during the hot weather we had recently. The hotter the ambient temperature, the more chance there is of this happening. They have a thermal link fitted so if the machine gets too hot it melts and the Dremel stops, never to go again. Unless of course you solder in a new thermal link. Mine however was still under it's 2 year warranty so I returned it. Just got a nice brand new one back today. This I think is the 4th or maybe 5th Dremel I've burnt out now, most failed mechanically, some started to stutter, some the variable speed control failed, some made weird noises and some just stopped. I currently have 7 Dremels, 4 working and 3 in bits for parts. Dremel have a habit of not repairing, just replacing with new. The nice thing about this is you only need to return the machine, not it's accessories, so you get all those replaced as well, great news as that means the flexible extensions also get replaced. I've given a few away as I had so many spare, at £30 or so each that's a nice saving for some people.

Did a little polishing yesterday, showed up areas that I need to redo, got 2 cam end covers done, 4 tappet covers, 1 generator casing partly done, 1 500 sprocket cover partly done and both rotor casing covers partly done. The 400 one came out pretty well, just has 1 area I need to redo, the 500 one not so good, needs quite a bit more work. Waiting on a special silversmith cushion so I can panel beat them a little better.

I'll post some pics when they look better, they need final polishing yet so aren't as good as I want them to be. The 400 cover BTW was so bright I could easily have used it to shave in, and I'm not exaggerating.

[Johnny4428]

Manufacturers are going to have to up their game to make a Ken proof rotary tool!🤣

[Oddjob]

The Dremel 4300 is by far the best out there IMO.

The fact it failed is mainly my fault. The weather was great so I sat out in the sun just sanding away for hours, in hindsight I should have changed machines and with the old 4000 I would have been checking every few minutes by grabbing the machine to see how hot it was getting. With the 4300 I've almost stopped doing that as they are so much better at venting the hot air than the 4000. It's why I have a few machines, I keep one for each purpose, some do flap wheel sanding and some do abrasive disc sanding, saves swapping over the end wheels. So I normally have 2 or even 3 machines plugged in ready to go at any one time. Because I always position the machine near my left arm I can normally feel the exhaust air on my skin, so I can feel when it's getting hot, but with the weather being hot anyway maybe I didn't feel it as well.

[Oddjob]

Still busy trying to restore some old stuff that would most likely have been either thrown away or put in a box somewhere until it's finally thrown away many years later.

I have just finished the touching up of the 550 rotor cover, kept putting it off as I was working on another one and wanted to paint them together.

Finally finished both. This is the new one, already spoken for as a gift to another member.



And both together.



I also have some other parts almost done, will post pics of them as soon as they are done, maybe tomorrow.

I had a go at this points cover, typical damage from being dropped. Not exactly in pristine condition, lots of damage.



And after a little panel beating on a silversmith leather bag filled with kiln dried sand. Just experimenting at this time, seeing if I can master the art. Nowhere near finished and TBH I'm not sure it's savable, there are a number of holes in the metal caused by small stones sticking into it, these have left holes in the surface, not holes that go through but I'm not able to buff these out. I'm going to try and fix them with some silver solder, flat it out afterwards and see how it looks and if it's ok I'll get it rechromed.

And after some work.

[Johnny4428]

Nice work Ken, these covers are looking ace!😎😎

[Oddjob]

Forgot to post the before pics of the new 550 cover.



Close up, this area was actually dented inwards and took some knocking back out. You can actually see the line of the dent if you look closely.



There's a little of the dent still left, it's the right hand cover in the dual photo.

[Oddjob]

More progress.

The 400 Four rotor cover badge is finished.

Started off like this. Some damage, not great but the dent in the upper half took some work to get rid of.



Then after being worked on, sanded and panel beaten to get rid of the dents, it looked like this.

 

I then started to polish it only to find it wasn't as good as I thought it was, so back to sanding and beating again. Then onto it's final polish. Some painting of the emblem area and finally the edge was sprayed in order to avoid brushmarks.



At the same time I was also testing my limits to see if I could recover this 500 rotor badge. This was bought purely to see if it was possible to do. It's actually a lot worse in the flesh than the pic makes it out to be.



Again, some panel beating and a lot of sanding later, again, didn't turn out too well on the first polish but it does highlight where you need to work on so not a total waste of time.



And after some more work.



I deviated from it's original look, the ridges on the outer rim were just left plain and initially I planned to see about just sanding off the top of the ridges so it was black/silver/black etc but I've left it like this at the present. All the damage was removed by running a diamond burr down the grooves to recut where the ridges had been smeared over by the damage when the cover went down the road. The black finish has covered where that wasn't a perfect restoration.

And finally both together. Just noticed I missed repairing some missing paint off the 500 Made in Japan area. No biggie.



I now need to test fit the 500 badge onto a rotor cover to check if it's distorted in shape.