I only got the cage on Monday evening though, and there's a lot of work to be done, so it's a bit of a challenge! So I thought I'd make a thread on here as a bit of an incentive, for people to prod me to get on with it, and who knows, might be of some help to other people. I figure I'm probably going to have quite a few questions, so keeping everything in one place is a good idea too.Broadly the issues are:
* Rusty trays - all 4 of them to varying degrees.
A selection of photos
* Rusty cage and bars - particularly either where the metal isn't flat or where the bars join at the apex (for exta difficulty).
Another selection
Worst panel
* 2 out of the 4 legs (so 4 individual feet) not being complete - so can't attach wheels and it's not level at the minute anyway.
(I don't have a photo of the worst one, yet!)
* Rusty corner metal thingies. One of them is much shorter than the others too and a bit mangled (was on the side of the worst leg). Previously it had been still attached to one of the metal sides it had been on, but I managed to slowly prize it off on Tuesday lol.
So far all I've managed to do is to remove most of the rust from 1 galvanised and 1 coated tray. Oh, and wire brushed my hand, that was painful
Shiny!
Well, kind of
Removing all of the rust is a bit tricky because you can't really use a wire brush properly in a 3D corner, and only adequately from the inside rim (and obviously not the corner of the rim). I'm probably going to go on an expedition to try and get some Hammerite tomorrow. I know that the paint isn't child/ animal safe in itself, but I'm assuming the gel is ok to use since you have to remove it before paint anyway. I can't find any mention of in on here though...
Some of the panels where the paint has come off, rather than rust, have a weird discolouration thingy happening. Sort of looks like they've been subjected to extreme heat, but that can't be right! What is it? In closer detail:
Also I'm not sure about paint colours now. I was going to repaint the whole thing, but Mary was lovely and cleaned it properly before I collected it - it turns out a lot of what seemed to be rust was dirt. And there's no way I'm repainting more than needs to be done. It's the new-style blue-with-yellow-bits duetto. And the coated trays are of course cream like usual (and need touching up/ partial recoating also). Currently I have the tail end of some spray plasti-kote, but that's orange.. And I have some red pots, but I don't really want to use that on the trays, and I figure red blobs on a mostly-blue cage will look a little horriffic anyway o.O
And a question from Jemma; are the legs of working duettos vertical, or are they slightly angled?
All those who've moved on
I'm sure you'll have motivation to do it since you've wanted one for so long.
Janeway, Shandy, Deanna, Izzy, Kira
