Body Paint

I like to live dangerously.  Some people might say I was a fool to get all my body bits painted before making a dry-fit assembly first.  But I am;

• Impatient
• Apt to lose motivation in a project if its not showing signs of progress
• Concerned that summer is on its way and I don't want to miss riding my Manurhin in the sunshine
• A true believer in "Done is better than perfect" - Scott Allen
• A true believer in "Relax, everything will work out OK"

And so a few weeks ago I focused my garage time on panel bashing, welding and grinding to get the body work good enough for powder-coating.  I make no apology for "Good Enough" being good enough for me.  That done, I sent all my body parts (sounds a bit Frankensteinish) to Redditch Shot Blasting - Not even knowing if it would all fit back together again once I'd spent lots of money on paint :-/

That was 4 weeks ago.  Today Dave the powder-coater phoned me to say the job would be complete this evening but he wanted to check with me about the quality of the finished job;

"Do you know that the surface of the parts you bought in is a bit wrinkly and pitted?  We can build up the powder in some areas to cover some marks, but some of the marks aren't going to be disguised by powder coating alone"  he said.

"Thats OK" I said, "I know its a bit tatty, but I don't want to spend time or money on making it perfect.  It's what you might call a 'three-foot bike' -  It'll look great from 3 feet away"

There was a pause at the other end of the phone "Well...... maybe a 10-foot bike" said Dave dryly

And so it was a little intrepidation that I drove over to collect my parts tonight.
I shouldn't have worried.  It all looked fabulous :-)  Yes there are wrinkles and dents (actually, far more than I thought there would be - there is nothing like a shiny surface for showing off what you couldn't feel with your hands...... maybe I should have taken my welding gloves off first ;-)

 So for £240 (plus that damn VAT) I now have all my bodywork ready to go.  In theory I could have this looking like a scooter relatively quickly - whether she runs like a scooter should is another question.

In the traditional way of all my projects, I proudly displayed the painted body parts around the house for my wife to admire.  She wasn't impressed.  Maybe its not her colour?

I'm trying to convince her that a Manurhin body cowl with a glass top would make a lovely coffee table...... she hasn't said 'No' :-)