Progress - Welded Bars, Clean Pads, Countersunk Screws

Earlier this week my friend added some welding to the bars and now they are rock solid. I set them up on the pads and they don't move at all so they should be good to go. Also, he managed to get the final leg leveler off of the stage with a torch a pipe-wrench.

There was still a  lot of dirt and rust on the frame so I took it to the garage for some all-purpose cleaner, CLR and steel wool. Here are a few shots I took during cleaning:

CLR improved most of the rust spots without much effort. I applied it with an old tooth brush and let it sit for about a minute. Afterwards I wiped it down with some paper towel and revealed the metal underneath the rust.

Steel wool is my new best friend. I went back over the triangle brackets and the top layer of stainless steel quickly with some steel wool and it cleaned them right up. The steel wool works on almost every piece of the stage and cleans without any chemicals which is nice.

Before:

 After:

I'm still waiting for a shipment of replacement screws for the inside, but in the mean time I've started replacing the top level screws and drilling some countersunk holes to make them flush. I bought a 1/2'' countersinking drill bit and basically did what is shown in this video.

Here you should be able to see how much more flush the screws sit after drilling. The screw on the right has had its hole drilled while the one on the left has not.

The screws I'm using are M6 12mm flat-head phillips screws. They come in packs of 100 but I need 104 which is lame: 4 per plate with 5 plates per pad, 8 per arrow with 4 arrows per pad, making 52 per pad or 104 total.

I set the metal up on the pads without screws for now and glued the tape-switch holding rubber things back onto the metal frames using some super glue. Also, I reconnected the tape switches. It's starting to look pretty good.

I have replacement screws for the L-Brackets since a lot of them were rusty, so I'll probably try and get those done today, too. The screws I'm using are M4 8mm pan-head phillips screws and I need 96 (3 per switch making it 12 per arrow, 48 per pad, or 96 total). I'm going to reuse the existing metal spacers and washers since they are in good shape and replacement spacers are hard to find. I am missing a few, though, so I will need to find replacements eventually.