Chicago Pneumatic Weld Flux Chipper CP9356

[rtcosic]

I've just got involved with http://www.sunderlandtrust.org.uk/ and started reading up on conservation of artifacts recovered from a marine environment.

http://nautarch.tamu.edu/CRL/conservationmanual/index.htm seems to be a well regarded source of information.

They recommend Chicago Pneumatic Weld Flux Chipper CP9356 and Pneumatic Air Scribe CP9361 for initial removal of marine encrustation. Unfortunately each of these is around the £200 mark and well beyond our current budget.

This Forum has folks with all sorts of useful experience, so can anyone recommend significantly cheaper alternatives? They would not be used 8 hours per day for years on end, more like 8 hours per week. I did have a little £16 electric scraper/chisel from Lidl, but that died an honourable death after being seriously overworked by chasing concrete block walls for rewiring and then stripping underseal from a couple of cars. Naturally Lidl haven't had one for offer for ages!

Once that's done I will be in my comfort zone of electrolytically cleaning the steel components of the Pegasus engines.

 

[Robotstar5]

Would an air chisel be any good for the heavy work?

 

[MattF]

You're going to end up paying just as much, in the long run, if you try skimping by using cheap tools. Best to buy quality once rather than rubbish several times.

What exactly are you going to be removing the encrusted surface from. The main structure so that you can remove parts from it for restoration, or just individual, steel items? If the latter, I'd try the electrolysis bath straight off. There's a good chance the reaction itself would shift a lot of the crap caked on there.

 

[sean-1]

Aero also offer air scribes of a good quality which are a bit cheaper not as good as the cp ones though (i use both for fossil preparation).

 

[mike 109444]

Hi rtcosis I did read some of the second link in your post the part talking about removal of concreation from metal items such as cannons ect. Having watched a program on cable where they search out wrecks with value and sometimes lift a cannon for dating ect then watch as they take "some" of the concreation off for finding details. They then talk of the delecat work needed to clean it up, I was supprised to read in the link the talk of chistles, hammers ect! I can see it would be tough stuff. Anyway going by that look at the air chissle/scaler kit or just the air scaler in MM. I did see a demo of one many years ago where they were showing a badly rusted car floor and showed the scaler operating on the floor and it just fell apart but to show that it was not that the scaler was SO POWERFUL but the car was rotten the presenter operated the scaler on his hand with no ill effects. I do own one of the MM ones and use it on odd occations. You can crank the air pressure down for a finer action. They are a it noisey on higher pressure and req a good size compresser. As they are quite cheep (try ebay for needle scaler) worth a punt?