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I use to have hair on my knuckles...


RoadsterRich

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Wow I picked up a 4 1/2" angle grinder, what a difference over using the die grinders to remove left over weld remnants! It won't fit in to some of the tighter spots, but boy does it make removal a breeze. Of course now I have to be very careful as it removes significant amounts of metal in relatively short order (as compared to using the die grinder).

Why don't they put warning labels on them suggesting you were gloves? I saw the sparks, figured it was like the little fragments from the die grinder, they fizzle out and are so small they don't do much damage... WRONG! It seems the angle grinder throws little slivers of metal that burn for a much longer time. And with the handle attached (and not reading the instructions so didn't know I could adjust the guard) the sparks fly out directed at the right hand. Needless to say after an hour of grinding my right hand was covered with little metal shards, and the melted remenants of the bits of hair that were there once upon a time.

In any event, the frame is moving along nicely on the 1930 Chrysler 77 Roadster. All of the extraneous welded bits are removed from the rear of the vehicle and grinding off the weld leftovers has commenced. I'm about 1/3 of the way through the rough grinding off and then will move to some finish grinding. With luck by the weekend the frame will be ready for one more really good cleaning and then wait for some dry weather so I can paint it! The truely exciting part now is that I have everything I need to get the car to move (and stop!) under it's own power. Wish I could afford to blow of work for a couple of weeks, would love to just work round the clock on it and get the frame and painting finished as well as the bulk of the wood work done.

Ah well... still think someone should have warned me to wear gloves!

Rich

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Guest Randy Berger

Rich, burning the hair off your knuckles is preferable to scraping it off by dragging knuckles on the ground as you walk wink.gif

YFAM, Randy Berger

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Jim,

The inexpensive angle grinder I bought came with 24Grit hard disks (4 1/2"). I'm still ignorant on many things, and didn't even know there were pad grinder disks available. Not to mention I wouldn't have known the difference if I did know they existed. For that matter I just found out I could get discs in other grits (80 and 120 were listed in the catalog). The things we learn...

Oh and most 'other' things are well protected... fuel lines, gas tank, woodwork, etc... hey and I do wear a shirt and jeans when working on the car. Though the jeans have more holes than denim left I think.

Rich

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One other thing those angle grinder you have to be careful of is the sparks easly set fire to the old under pad or the seats of these cars as well. As be careful of your glass, as it tends to burn it or leave steel pits in it, cover it up with cardboard before doing grinding.

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Albert,

Great information! Fortunately (or is that unfortunately?) I have no glass... no seats... no interior... just metal and wood.

The grinder sparks bothered me enough I moved quite a bit of stuff away from the work area, and brought both of my larger extinguishers in to the area where I normally only keep one. I put heavy welding blankets over stuff as well.

Rich

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I try to do most of my grinding outside. I dont like the idea of those little sparks finding something flammable in some out of the way corner of my shop! Dont mind loosing hair (except on my head) but I learned my lesson of not wearing gloves when the piece I was holding and grinding slipped and the edge of the grinding disk made contact with my finger. Ouch.

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