Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Tuesday shop time, brazing and painting...

Monday night was a busy one at the FD and when quitting time rolled around at 0700 I was feeling a bit knackered.

I spent the morning finishing up paint prep on multiple projects.

Most of it was finish brazing and blasting in the media cabinet.

Here's a road frame belonging to Mike S. It's getting some rack braze on's and some fresh paint...a dark British racing green metallic faded to a metallic charcoal on the bottom.

I finally gave up on waiting for Mike W's Fat frame to drain out, so I drilled out the silver filled holes, drained, flushed, and blew it out. I then had to go back and re-braze the tubes closed (all the way this time) so it would be back to it's intended shape.

Here's the Down Tube with a fresh dab of 56%...
And all cleaned up...will be invisible under paint once again.
Blasting took awhile as it has rained constantly the last two days and I was fighting quite a bit of moisture in the air lines due to humidity, despite multiple gravity traps. I've dabbled with the idea of using an air dryer for the entire system, but at 1500 bucks for a quality piece, have just not been able to justify the cost. Perhaps in the near future.
I was able to get a number of pieces in primer and ready for the color layers. I'd have taken some pics for you, to match the already crappy ones above taken by my phone, but I promptly dumped a cup of Omni solvent on it while trying to answer a call while at the paint prep station...crap. The phone is really clean now, but the solvent kinda fused/melted some of the buttons. Still works for now, keeping my fingers crossed ;)
So, the only color to share with y'all is this...
Em made this up in paint while sitting bored in my office, waiting for me to take her home
Kinda a neo-retro impressionist thingy...she was quite proud of it, replacing my current wall paper with it. So much for the early Indian motorcycle I had on there :)
Tomorrow, I'll be cutting concrete to install a new door and two windows in the shop so that folks will not have to let themselves in through the big overhead door. I've been trying to get it done since fall, but time has just not been available. I figured I better hit it now while I have two days of sun projected and before I begin to spray some clear; I'd hate to have to fight with dust nibbets...yuck.
Keep your eyes peeled tomorrow for this months contest info...gonna give something cool away.
FatMikeNYC...drop me a call when you can, let's talk about the 83 Fat.
cheers,
rody

1 comment:

denise garro said...

Thankyou sooooooo much for those beautiful bars....Wow...nice tig welding---a piece of art....D