Mostly Lotus

The Honolulu All British Car Day is coming up at the end of this month. If I am to have any hope of showing my Lotus I have to fix the big scratch some griefer thought would make a statement. Last week I bought the paint, spray gun, and associated stuff, but Sunday was the Haleiwa Century Ride so no car work got done. Today was the day to get to it.

The first thing to do was to sand out the scratch. For that I used #180 wet/dry, wet. (Make a note: next time bring a bigger bucket.) This revealed four areas where the scratch was especially deep. To fill those areas I used my POR-15 Epoxy Filler. After sanding down the first application, still using #180 but in my short sanding block, I could see where I needed to extend the filler a little further, so I applied a little more and when that was hard I finished bringing it down the level of the paint surface. The next phase will be to use high-build primer to level out the whole thing. I'm thinking about working on that at home. We'll see.





While I was working on the scratch I also worked on the E9. First I ground down the welds I finished with last time, then when I applied to filler on the Lotus I also used some to fill in the gaps around the E9 tail light patches. After grinding that down, first with my grinder, then with #50 paper in my long sanding block, I had a few more low spots, so when I applied the second round of filler to the Lotus I also applied some to the E9. I did not have time to grind that down.



I'll close with a note about how busy a week it has been. Saturday night was our gamelan concert, so we had a rehearsal Wednesday night, dress rehearsal Friday night, and a two o'clock call on Saturday to get everything ready. Friday after was the monthly after work party at Asian Studies, which we might have skipped if it were not also a first birthday party for a friend's baby boy. Can't miss that. Then on Saturday morning there was a brunch to honor Ric Trilillos, who received a best student mentor award. Working at the shop today I felt like I was in a fog.

Here's a pic of the gamelan, minus players. I don't have any pictures of us playing, because I am always on stage. For this concert I mostly sang, but I did drum one piece.