Saturday, January 17, 2004  -  I've been getting to a shop a little here and a little there over the past two weeks, getting some more sandblasting done to the cab whenever I could squeeze in a little time. I took yesterday (Friday) off from work to give me a 3-day weekend to get some more work done, hoping to at least get finished up with the sandblasting. I got started about 10AM yesterday with the sandblasting and got about 97% done before having to call it a day. But what an interesting day it was.

Before I even finished my first hopper of sand, the water separator mounted on the sandblaster broke, so I had to run to the parts store to pick up another. Back up and running after an hour...but since I'd neglected to regularly drain the air compressor and water filters, I started getting water in the sand, which was clogging up the valves. Had to dump the full hopper out onto the floor, blow it dry and refill. Back up and running after a half hour, making sure I drained the compressor and multiple water separators and filters frequently. Had a buddy run out of gas right in front of the shop, so had to spend a few minutes using the snowblower gas to get him up to the gas station. Back up and running about the time my wife showed up with lunch, so had to take a break again....*sheesh*...and then later in the afternoon, just about quitting time, I blew a hole in the sandblaster hose. Fortunately it was right at the valve, so I was able to unclamp it, cut off an inch of hose and clamp it back on. But my momentum was wearing down, so I called it a day.

I was planning on being in the shop all day today...started working there about 8AM, but my wife got called in to work, so I had to come home and watch my son about 2:30PM. I basically finished up with the core part of the sandblasting, and then got started chipping all the seam sealer out from the body panel seams, since the sandblaster won't touch that stuff. I had to dig out the angle grinder with a stiff wire brush attachment to cut through it. Got virtually all the seam filler cleaned up with the wire wheel and a scraping tool, and tomorrow plan on hitting all those areas one last time with the sandblaster to clean up the remaining residue.

I'll then get started removing the cab's drip rails and cutting out the rusted roof section just above the rails, and cutting a patch panel from a spare cab.

Finished up the bulk of the sandblasting and then got started cleaning out seam filler from all the body seams. I'll go back and hit these areas with the sandblaster one more time after getting the filler out. The inside roof area is the only part left untouched, since it'll be hidden by the headliner anyway.

This shot shows some of the seam filler I was cleaning out. The shiny areas are the result of the wire wheel. After this pic was taken I took a small screwdriver and cleaned out what the wire wheel couldn't get to. I'll finish this up with one more pass with the sandblaster.