I acquired this beast over the summer. It was several hours away (in wisconsin) but I got lucky and was early enough to get it. Seller said she had dozens of callers who wanted it. It was REALLLLLY beat up though. Totally worth the $25 i paid (IMO)
What i've done:
- leg sockets were smooshed into bowl and out of alignment, so i hammered them back into place from the inside of the bowl. This sucked, and knocked off even MORE porcelain finish
- bent side handle back into semi straightness. When i got it, one handle was bent all the way up to the lip of the bowl
- the lid handle was also crushed down at an angle, i straightened it
- i used steel wool to get rid of any rust
- i masked off everything but the chips that were larger than a nickel and painted them with VHT red caliper paint. It took several coats to build it up to match the porcelain
- after de-masking, i sprayed the paint into the can's lid and used a small paintbrush (from a watercolor set) to paint ALL the chips smaller than a nickel (there were more than a hundred)
- i sanded and stained the handle. several times because i'm a noob and kept messing it up
- cleaned and polished the legs, wheels, and triangle base. Nevr Dull and steel wool worked magic. I left the wheels on the triangle base with the two legs because i didn't want to remove the metal caps (they're useless after removal and i wanted to keep them original)
- bent back the grate straps, pretty much all of the standoffs were smooshed down, or bent up.
what's left:
- clean up and re-shape the ash catcher. it's filthy and has lots of dents.
- possibly add a high-heat clear-coat. sand and polish to match porcelain better
- clean and polish daisy wheels, reattach
- clean, or replace grill grate. I'm going to check out a local cast iron option tomorrow. the old one is really rusty - i have not attempted to salvage yet.
- possibly touch up the wheels with some black and white paint. one wheel is significantly better than the other
- replace a missing thumbscrew. any idea where i can find one???
- cook up a kickbutt meal
so far i've put about 12 hours into this beast.
