Grinding away

Last Sunday I tried out my new grinder. I had been using a wire brush on a die grinder to remove the loose rust and bondo. First I tried a non-metalic wheel. A welding book recommended this to avoid contamination of the steel with the metal from a wire brush. It worked fine on paint, bondo, and smooth steel, but as soon as I got into a big rust spot the brisles flew off. I tried a metal wire wheel, but after an hour it was half gone.

Previously I wrote about people giving me advice. On this subject the opinions were split. I should be using a grinder, and a grinder would be too slow. After shredding two wheels in as many hours and with very little to show for it, I went to Larsen's Tool Repair and purchased a Chicago Pneumatic CP-854 4 in. pnumatic grinder along with a couple of Makita 24 grit wheels. The nice lady at Larsen's even threw in a free bottle a Marvel air tool oil and a pair of safety glasses. I also picked up a CP-870 6 in. orbital sander, but due to a bout of brain freeze I failed to buy sanding disks. I finally picked up a pack of 3M 80 grit discs from Redline Automotive, but not before Sunday.

Sander on the left, grinder on the right.

The grinder works really well. The small size is easy to hold and move. The small diameter wheel used on-edge was able to sneak down into all but one low spot. The rate of removale was slow, but this gave me confidence that I was not at risk of turning good steel into Swiss Cheese. I did have some trouble removing the last of the paint. I felt as though going for 100% paint removable was resulting in too much metal loss. I think the sander will be better for this last bit.

Nose after grinding. Green color casued by quartz halogen work light ... next time I'll leave it off.

Same place from the side. The remaining bits of paint are too small to show up.