Stripping Wheels

Back yard carriage restorers have a lot in common with old time gold prospectors...they are willing to put up with untold inconvenience, tearing down mountains of dirt, in anticipation of finding the gem underneath all the crud.

The front axle of the carriage is currently in the hands of a skilled blacksmith, having some very worn parts replicated.  A good opportunity for me to tackle the most unsavory job of all; stripping the wheels. The last of the horrible dirty work before the gem is fully revealed!

The professional work was done last summer.  The wheels are sound, tight, and have new channel and rubber.

All they need is a good cleaning.

Each wheel has 16 elegant wooden spokes, and each spoke essentially has four surfaces. Then of course, there are the felloes/wooden rims.  No matter how you cut it, a set of four filthy wheels to clean up is a daunting task!

Let me say right here and now, that chemical stripping is the awfullest, most toxic, slimy, disgusting process imaginable.  The stuff comes out of the can like the most pernicious snot.  If you try to apply it with a brush, it falls off in globs.  I tried applying it by holding my gloved hand under each spoke and smearing globs of it on with my other gloved hand.  Eventually, the awful stuff made its way through my chemical resistant gloves and fried my hands.  It gets on everything and it BURNS where it touches skin!  Maybe it's just me, I'm probably just sloppy.

But then, when it's done its work, you have to get the awful stuff, now freighted with gluey, sticky paint, OFF. I wiped as much as I could off with paper towels, I scoured the surfaces with a paint brush loaded with solvent. I scraped with a putty knife.  I scrubbed with solvent-soaked steel wool. The paper drop cloth under the project looked like a murder scene out of a B rated vampire movie and smelled like a Superfund site.

And there are FOUR of these devils to strip!!! And after all the horrible toxic mess, you're still left with wheels that need to be thoroughly sanded.

After coming into the house yesterday, totally freaked out by the whole reeking affair, I decided I WOULD return to heat stripping the wheels!  The above photo is a heat-strip in progress, showing the partially stripped spokes, and the cruddy old paint still adhering in areas that haven't beein treated.  PLEASE NOTE THE "MESS" UNDER THE WHEEL!! Half of this wheel is stripped, and there's almost nothing to clean up.

One serious concern with the torch is burning the rubber tire.  This problem was conveniently solved by stretching an old WET cotton sock over the rubber AND the iron channel.  The sock handily drapes perfectly over the curve of the wheel and sticks like a limpet.  I could hit it briefly with the flame of the torch and it hardly even got warm.

Here is a wheel that has been stripped by both chemical and heat means, awaiting a thorough sanding...

And here is the gem lurking under all that crud!  Stripped and sanded, tire taped for painting, just awaiting the glue to dry in pegged, old tire bolt holes, then a coat of clear sealer and wait for painting weather!