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« on: April 05, 2020, 2032 UTC »
Breaking Quarantine
I found someone local to bead blast and powder coat the 775s poor cabinetry. At first I tried to find my goto place where I'd had a Romanian AK74 blasted and powder coated several years ago but couldn't remember where it was, mebbe they gone under. But fb, as much as I dislike anything zuckerberg, revealed a proprietor with a home blasting/coating shop, called and made arrangements for said blasting/coating.
Ran into a snag as the inside of one cabinet half has a large sheet of what I assume is sound deadening material of a synthetic felt nature, glued firmly over a substantial area of said cabinet. It also had a clothe-like sound passing baffle over the speaker port. Both of these would be ruined by the heat of powder coating, or misapplication of the bead blasting process.
So it was decided to simply glass bead the exterior of the cabinetry, the insides of wich are coated in a type of bluing or similar that is conductive, where powder coating is usually a insulator. In consideration of the above, spray bombs were the only recourse.
So while the cabinetry was undergoing the bead blasting, I vetured forth to Lowes only a few miles away and found they were indeed doing business during thapocalypse. Got some dark grey texture finish rustoleums and went back to the bead blasters.
Blasting took off all exterior coating and greatly reduced the apparent scratches and all traces of rust and corrosion! Inside, the cloth materials were unhurt.
Took all home and set up operations in the porch to keep dust and pollen off the surfaces post and ante spraybombing runs. Cleaned the surfaces to be painted with alcohol to remove any oils or other crap.
Holy crap this stuff is vile smelling. Spraying a few light coats, varying the pass direction and angle of attack made for a nice uniform coat, and the longer it dried the better it looked. I didn't like it at first when it was still wet, but now think it looks great, something Inuoue-san might be proud of.
Anyway, it looks like something the factory would have done, can't wait to put it together with the less blemished front panel and see how it looks.
73's and best regardses!
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