Hey, That Looks Good

Lots to report here and I apologize if it sounds confusing. Today was the Honolulu Century Ride, by far Hawaii's biggest cycling event. My wife Pattie and I did 50 miles, which was plenty enough for me. I try to ride to work every day, but this year my life has become too complicated and average between three and four days a week. That's enough to be healthy, but not enough to develop the endurance necessary for long rides. Needless to say, nothing was done on the E9 today.

Not working on the car had one positive side effect -- I got to watch Sunday Night Football. The Bears beat the Eagles. In Hawaii the game aired at 2:15. Normally I'm at the shop at that time. I do get to watch Monday Night, because that game is delayed until 6:30. The thing is, I can't stand the ESPN announcers. Al Michaels and John Madden are by far the best football commentators in the business. The ESPN style is for the announcers to argue amongst themselves, and none of them are capable of providing the on-the-spot play analysis that Madden does so well.

Last Sunday I did get to work on the car and it was another milestone kind of day. The sort of day that leaves me feeling as though this project might actually turn out well.

The day consisted mostly of sanding down the second layer of POR-15 Epoxy Filler. I put fresh #40 paper in both of my sanding blocks and spent several hours painstakingly working down all those lumpy spots.

The first series of photos shows how it looked after all that sanding. The second set shows how it looked after spraying with primer. I left the edges alone; they still need to be rounded.







Once again I forgot my tripod and had to use the on- camera flash, and that tends to flatten the image. I found it really hard to get a clear photo that shows what it looks like.

By the way, the milestone was the first application of primer on the path leading to the finish paint. Maybe that sounds silly but it seemed important to me.

Window sill takes shape

It was another scorcher today. I have not seen the numbers, but was hot in my bay, so hot I had to ask myself why I keep doing this when there must be more pleasurable ways to spend a Sunday.

Today was all about sculpting. I did most of the work with the shorter of my two sanding blocks, loaded with 40 grit paper. I did use my grinder on the upper and lower faces, but I did not want to risk it on the middle face, the one that will be visible. The course paper cut the POR-15 Epoxy Filler with ease, the perfect balance between speed and caution.

This series of photos tries to show how it looked after an hour. The small, on-camera flash tends to obliterate textural details, so I tried shooting from various angles. Maybe next week I'll remember to take a tripod so I can shoot without flash.





These last two photos show the second application of filler. Hopefully that should do it.