Date: July 31, 2007
Total hours spent today: 4

Today was ALL 'bout the paint! LOTS of stuff got done today, and it was a very busy morning.

Here's kind of a "summary" photo of the painting I got done today. Disregard the dome ring. That was just sitting there.

So all told, I painted the outer feet, the inner foot, the batteries, the ankle cylinder holders, the shoulder horseshoes, the skirt bolts, and the fronts of the outer ankles.

Here's the two batteries, all painted and ready to go.

But not so fast! On one of the batteries,I got a really weird surface peel texture. Kind of like when you spray laquer paint over enamel. I have no idea what caused this. Maybe some oil or something that got smudged on the battery. Oh well. I let the paint dry, then sanded it back down. After that, I re-applied primer, and let it dry. Tomorrow, I'll try finishing this battery off.

The center foot is also painted, though I would like to give it another coat. Today I did a lot of experimenting with the knobs on the spray gun. The knob at the front controls the shape of the spray jet. Wider or more narrow. The knob at the back controls the amount of paint that is coming out. Turns out, you can indeed optimize these settings for the paint you've got. I guess it also makes a difference how far away from the item you are. My basic rule of thumb is : Spray until there's no orange peel surface. Spray it 'till it's smooth. As the thinner and paint evaporate, it really smooths out nicely.

The outer feet got painted too. They came out really nicely. I did end up spending some more time this morning sanding down the primer I had blasted on yesterday. I wanted to get a good finish after all. Remember, this paint hides NOTHING. It goes on really thin and evenly. So any imperfections that are in the primer are going to be in your final piece.

Lastly, here's the bolts that hold the skirt in place. Too cool.

That's all for today. I'm really happy with the progress. Looks like I will indeed get all of the white parts painted by the end of the week. I hope to get them clear coated too, but we shall see. There's still a lot of work to do. Tomorrow, I'm going to try to lay down some base coat for the blue. I'm going to do a couple small test pieces, like on the side vents and pocket vents, to make sure I'm doing the blue properly. Should be a hoot. Stay tuned!