So I have joined the ranks of MSJ refurbishers out there, using stripper to slather off the old brown topcoat and vanilla primer. About 98% came off immediately. I'll polish when finished removing the paint. My question is how should I clean the grinder when I am done? I'm thinking a careful bath with Dawn to rinse away stripped bits and residues. I've covered the motor up and throat of the grinder. Obviously anything electric wont be rinsed. In fact I tore down the grinder to the harness tucked neatly up inside where it is safe. I just don't want to be consuming paint stripper!

The rear of the grinder as you see has a bit of primer still on it, however it bears emphasis that the front has almost none clinging to it and sloughed off immediately.

Any helpful tips for cleaning would appreciated.

Depends on the stripper you used. Some are water soluble so hot water & dawn would work fine. Others require solvent to remove all the goo. Read the clean up instructions on the stripper container.

I did mine last night with a wire wheel to the aluminum, then a polishing wheel with Jacksonlea Black bar (firm 7" polishing wheel and variable speed polisher) and finished it with the Jacksonlea white bar. The whole thing took about 2 hours. I used mineral spirits to clean the aluminum dust and the polishing residue between cycles-- without mineral spirits, you will never be able to remove all of it. There was WAY more residue and dust than I ever thought would be possible and almost invisible without using the mineral spirits.

Fastenal carries the buffing compounds. They may carry them under the Osbourn brand.

Ltrain how did you keep the nasty out of the vital areas like throat, etc? No vents on my sides either so that's good......

Ok so no sanding occurring....yet. Stripper indicated she likes to be cleaned with mineral spirits. So mineral spirits then maybe the Dawn and water. Or is Dawn the stripper? Wait, that's another thread...

I won't polish until I can get it out to the knife shop at my inlaws'. Every buffer and grinder under the sun available, so I can properly hit it with the black > grey > pink > green...

Mirror shine isn't the objective today. As long as the interior of the throat and chute are clean I'm not gonna eat poison. Trusting my life to blue masking tape is such fun!

Just a few tough spots of primer remain....

I wadded up some paper and stuffed it into the throat and taped it off, so if I got the tape with the wheel, I had a little bit of backup with the wadded up paper. I did the same with the bean chamber to keep the dust out of the bottom burr carrier. My grinder is a little older and I dont think the casting was as good as they are now. It would take ALOT of cutting compound buffing to get out the tiny imperfections of the casting, so I am not interested in spending the time to get a mirror finish. I actually like the way it looks now, but I could be making excuses for being a little lazy. It's pretty shiny, but not a mirror.

Yeah you'll spend all day chasing nicks and whatnot, and a month later you won't see or care about them. I'm in Dallas by the way. Where ya'll at?


Alex

??????? B b. mods please delete.

Scotchbrite wheel on a Baldor grinder. Took about 10 minutes. The amount of casting flaws is horrendous and not in the mood to sand but this actually looks pretty good! My main question is after blowing it out thoroughly with very high powered shop air, what should I run through it to eject potential nastiness in the throat to clean it? The top was covered entirely and i blew everything out. The entire outside was wiped down with acetone. My thought was Grindz or stale beans or even the older beans I have....

Also want a new espresso machine. No idea there either.