Sunday, March 12, 2017

Snow Day

We got a good dose of snow last night in Jonesboro and since we don't see much of the white stuff here in Arkansas, the little man Jack wanted to take it all in. Factory racer Larry Yancey gave him a couple Flexible Flyers a while back and the little man insisted I get them down out of the rafters of the garage. "Gladly", I said. "Anything to get you out of the house." 

Turns out, I not only had to go out in the snow with him, I had to be his sled dog too. I hate snow! Oh well, it wasn't bad and we got a few pics to look back on. He didn't quite understand the concept of snowballin when I pelted him upside the head with a big wet snowball but he was quick to learn.

Wouldn't be a stroll without Dizzy.

If you want to watch some good racing highlights Paris-Nice was decided by 2 seconds. Quite good for early season. Steephill TV has it all and you can usually watch the last couple of kilometers of each stage. It's nice being able to watch all the key moments of an entire stage race in about 10 minutes.

It's about time to get back in the paint booth. Got a fork on the way for a gravel road bike. Hoping to get it done soon. Thanks for stopping by.






Thursday, March 9, 2017

When Paint Schemes Go Awry

The last time I posted I believe I said something to the effect that the next time I post it would be with some color. Well, it took a while but here it is. After seeing a few Van Halen posts on Facebook I decided to incorporate a little EVH voodoo into one of my frames. It turned out to be a little harder than I anticipated. I think painting a bicycle might be a little harder than painting a guitar but I wouldn't tell Eddie that.  On second thought,
yes i would!

This was how it turned out after the first time I completed it and it just didn't seem to meld, however, as I'm looking at it here a couple days later it doesn't seem so bad. The head tube design, which I had no actual design at all wasn't even close to working. The paint job was good however it looked like it belonged on 3 different frames instead of one. After spending so much time trying to get this thing right and then to finish and realize it the paint scheme didn't really work like you thought it would was devastating at first, but what do you do? Shake it off and give it another dig. It took 4 tries to get the fork right, not to mention I got talked into some primer that didn't jibe with my painting products. That really messed things up from step one. I laid down the first color of base coat and it immediately started cracking and looking like a spider web. Took a long time to diagnose the problem but we finally figured it out and fortunately it was nothing that I was doing. That's always great to hear after you've beat yourself up for a week. The primer incident was a lot of the reason it took so long. Anyway, all water under the bridge.

Here's the "do-over" as we used to call it when we played football on the playground. I feel much better about it now. A buddy of mine even said that it looks just like me. Was that a compliment? Not sure. Anyway, I'm still not sure it's done. I think it needs some black where the top tube and down tube meet the seat tube and then also on the other side where the stays connect. Geez! When will I be able to move on?

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