RainsFire: What you are seeing as old metal finish is actually a layer of dried out, caked on grease imbedded with metal shavings that is about a 16th of an inch thick. Under this is what is left of the original paint, and there isn't all that terrible much left. Luckily all that grease has kept any major rust and corrosion at bay, not so luckily you can barely touch the thing as it sits without embedding metal shaving in your hands.....
CQ: The restore is going....slowly...but it is going. When I got it, all we had was a little old 4.5 CFM air compressor, so sand blasting was out of the question. So far I've pretty well run the bearings outta a little hand drill using a wire brush, and that was just on one of the arms..... But! we just purchased a BIG ingersoll rand compressor this past weekend, and as soon as we get it set up with a single phase motor, I'll be able to blast to my hearts content. If it gets to looking like the compressors not gonna be running before it's too cold to paint (about late October/ early November around here) I have a guy locally that will blast it for me pretty cheap. I'm just not especially keen on loading up that 600-700 pound base to take it and get it blasted...
I did manage to pick out a paint system for it. I seriously considered repainting it the OE seafoam-ish green color....but then decided that since I am not restoring it for a museum, why not get creative.... a quick trip to Tractor Supply Company, and the decision to go with Valspar Tractor and Implement paint in Allis-Chalmers orange was set in stone! I might even get creative and pick up a quart of dark blue and do some flames on the base... but that will come a bit later.
So, in summary, the drill is coming. So far it is coming slowly, but hopefully with the decision to sandblast it will start moving a bit more quickly and I will at least have all the primer laid down before it gets to cold to paint.
-Aaron @ the SCF
(pictures to come soon. I finally figured out how to take smaller sized pictures with my camera
)