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Okay, granted, this Instructable is not going to change any lives or anything, but I'm allergic to this rubber coating anyway, and I was so happy with...
For the retro, 1930's strongman look, choose the kind with round, bulbous ends. These are found pretty cheap at discount stores like Ross, TJ Maxx, ...
Use the box cutter to carefully cut through the rubber coating. Try not to scratch the metal underneath. You can tear the coating pretty easily, so...
The casting process leaves very fine clay behind on the metal. This becomes trapped under the rubber coating. We need to clean this clay off the we...
Because these weights are made out of iron, they will begin to rust immediately from the exposure to water, so it's vital to dry them right away, and...
Do this step quickly after your iron is dry. Don't let them sit around and start to rust (unless you're going for that kind of effect). Now as the w...
One of my stands was already black plastic. The other was purple, so I spray painted it with the flat black paint.
Hope you like them!
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Try wax!
While the weights are still quite warm(but not so hot they burn you),
take some nice high-melting temperature wax, and rub it all over the iron.
Once cool, wipe off any wax that hasn't soaked in with a dry cloth.
Nice iron color. rust prevention. no coating to wear off.
The castings can be pretty darn rough, under that rubber(the non-coated ones are better castings, and receive better finishing). Consider hitting the handle area with a wire-wheel. either on a dremel, an angle grinder, or a bench grinder style mount.
this will improve your desire to continue to use the weights by 20-30%. If you leave it as a rough raw casting, within days, your hands will be so chewed up, you'll want to throw the weights straight into the recycle bin.
Can you suggest a brand or specific type of wax for this?
um... not birthday candles?
Usually, for iron and steel sculpture, I actually use Peanut oil... but you need higher tempatures for that(120F, 130F) but gives a nice brown color.
I'd say, use anything you have on hand, other than soy or bee's wax.
Even the wax off of wax-paper would work :-)
Birthday candles would be paraffin wax. Thanks!
Paraffin wax wouldn't an ideal choice for me, as the fume-y smell does make me a little ill. It's a petroleum derivative and probably not the best for your health.
I guess I'll stick with the spray paint and polyurethane. Once dry, they don't come off in the air or on your skin.