True Fire?

 I found two hours Tuesday night to experiment painting true fire flames. After watching a few videos I figured "how hard can it be?" It's hard. I wasn't gonna post pics of how crappy a job I did because those of you that couldn't possibly think less of me, will. After sleeping on it I realized that it might make a good "before" pic if I happen to create something presentable. Mixing reds and oranges was easy and I liked the shade of those colors. For whatever reason my yellow turned out green after applied. I mean, I'm looking at straight yellow in the cup and its laying down green. That's not the beer talking. That's a fact.

 Look who jumped up here to help me write this blog. Oliver Rodenzo himself. Rodenzo because he looks like a rodent. If ever there was a two faced back stabbing cat, this is the one. He'll snuggle up and purr looking for a treat then he's out of here. If you don't give him what he wants then he'll mess your shit up. Rat bastard. If he gets too chummy I'll give him his helmet and we'll play "launch the kitty".

 I painted a piece of sheet metal all black and hung it on the wall. All my paint just sat on my makeshift turn table and life was good. That can of black will get some use today as I plan to cover up my first session and practice some more. So here is the first failure. It looks like shit but I learned a whole lot about this process.

 The flames I like the best make heavy use of stencils which is why I thought this would be easier. Some of the stuff in the dead center of the pic uses stencils and I can see that once I get the hang of using them then maybe things will look better. Or maybe not. I also need to understand better the use of light colored highlights but all of that may come with practice. I may or may not keep you posted.

Later.

Busy Week

 Its that time of year again when keeping up at work is almost impossible. My wife is on an extended weekend vacation to Florida so I've been putting in a few extra hours to try to help the situation. I may even go in today and spray a couple lawns. I guess I'm not the only one feeling rushed because yesterday I found our spray trailer with a crushed pallet under it. It must have been used to raise the trailer off the ball. I wonder if it collapsed when they unhooked the trailer or later on.

 So I have this gallon water cooler that gets filled with fresh water, ice and about a teaspoon of lemon juice. I take it to work every day and when I work in the shop it sits on my bench or tool box. For the longest time I thought someone was messing with me because I'd keep finding the lid open on it. I know I had been closing the lid but for a little while I thought maybe old timers disease was setting in. Yesterday the cooler was in the truck and so was I when I heard a pop and saw that the lid flew open.

 Why is pressure building in my cooler? I don't know if its the ice melting and the temp rising causing the pressure to rise or if it has something to do with the lemon juice but it will happen multiple times a day. Its annoying and I'm afraid I'll take a gulp sometime and swallow whatever insects decided to take shelter in there when I'm not looking. Small ants or maybe a ladybug I'm alright with but if its got a stinger or eight legs then I'd prefer not to drink it down. I may have to buy a new cooler.

 I told you last time about wanting to try my hand at painting real fire with an air brush. I know this is gonna turn out bad but I ordered some candy paint anyway and if I get some time I may even start practicing later today.

 Those three bottles on the left are actually a red, yellow and orange. Why they all look like brown is a mystery to me. Actually, everything about this painting exercise is a mystery to me. Oh, if you never hear from me again about painting flames then you know I crashed and burned.

Later.

Slimey Crud

 Last Sunday was the Slimey Crud Run and the weather was perfect. Turnout was good in Leland so I had a lot of bikes to drool on. I took a bunch of pics but for whatever reason, most of them weren't on my phone when I went to look for them. Bummer.
 So what you don't get to see are some nice restorations, a few rats, a perfect Kawasaki three cylinder two stroke and a blown v8 Goldwing. What did save on my phone are a few airbrush paint jobs that inspired me.

 This flaming hog is cool. I hope to be able to do the flames some day but I'll probably never have the talent for the hogs head.

 Not sure about this one but I do like the flames.

 This one is cool but again, way beyond my skill set. If I ever get caught up on the 101 other things that need to get done around here then I'll start practicing something like this.
 In other news, Monday was our 30th wedding anniversary. If you're one of my kids then this may come as a surprise to you and you're probably having an "oh shit" moment right now. Anyway, the wife and I went out for dinner to a place we've wanted to try and had a nice meal. I'm ready for another thirty if she is.

Later.

Photo Dump

 Sometimes you just gotta ask yourself, WTF were they thinking? Take this wooden trailer hitch extension for example:

I suppose in a "git-r-done" scenario this would be ok for pulling a yard cart around but how many yard carts use a 2" ball?

 This week we got two, count em, two of these semi loads of snow plows. It just doesn't seem right to have to take these orders right after all the snow just melted.

 I have a customer with a chainsaw that doesn't like to follow starting procedures. He'll bring the saw in and complain about what a piece of crap it is and then we will review the starting procdures again. He'll be fine for a few months and then come back complaining it won't start. I made up a special set of instructions for him so there will be no more excuses.

I wonder if he got the hint?

Every time I get home before my wife this is what I'm greeted by:

One of them is scratching to get out and the other is waiting patiently. FEED ME! We never eat! I'm so hungry! Whatever. Those cats don't look like they're starving.

 And speaking of mischief, I'm not sure what these two were up to but they stopped as soon as they spotted me.

  This one is just pure false advertising:

 No treats in that bowl, at least by my standards.

Today is the Slimey Crud Run. Still not sure if I'm gonna make the trek, I still have a couple hours to decide.

Later.

Spring is Certainly Here Now

 The calendar said spring but the snow on the ground said winter, but no more. In two weeks we warmed right up and just the other night I rode home from work in 79 degree temps. Some rain may be on the way but these temps are sure easy to take.
 The sporty sits in the garage now. I rolled it out of its winter hibernating spot which was my enclosed trailer. The Flex-Seal I sprayed on the roof seams seems to have done its job. (you like what I did there? Sometimes I write these the night before after tipping back a few cool ones.) No signs of leaks this spring.

 You already know the bike is getting paint so I won't dwell on that. Other changes may or may not include a new headlight, different front turn signals and possibly ape hangers. I've been on a few bikes with apes and I guess they're all right for short runs. I think I'd like to give em a try. Besides, the bike will look much better with that style bar on it.
 In other news, the BMW had a weird sound/vibe coming from the front end. After the whole ordeal with needing a new front differential, you can imagine how excited we get anytime there's a new noise. The car has budget tires on it that the dealer hung on there and I wondered if one of them was the culprit. I decided to swap the front tire to the rear and see if the sound moved. I own one floor jack so the plan was to jack and then block the rear, then move the jack to the front. To my surprise the front tire came off the ground while jacking from the rear factory lift position. This made the job a lot easier.

  After the swap a test ride proved the theory of a bad tire as opposed to a wheel bearing, cv shaft, etc., although the front end may indeed need to be aligned. I'll throw that tire on the balancer at work and see if its out of whack.
 And finally, an update on the Subaru. After the timing belt disaster that bent all 16 valves while blasting down I94, the car has been running fine. I've been using it daily although that will taper off now that biking weather has arrived.

Later.

Prime Rib and Gruel

 Yesterday was the first day this spring I had worked in the field as opposed to turning wrenches or helping customers at the shop. It felt good to be outside all day but then again I felt that I had been outside working all day. One of the tasks we were working on was fixing some turf damage along sidewalks in a high profile area. I found that a Garden Weasel is a wonderful tool for loosening soil in preparation for seed in the areas that the power slit seeder couldn't get. The only problem was that the handle is way too short and the amount I had to lean really messed with my back. I found the best cure to be handing the Weasel off to someone else, making me the weasel.

 Luckily I was the senior weasel on the job and I could get away with that. Another task that had to be done today was fertilizing. We use these small stand on units and they really work well although the ride is quite bumpy and (you guessed it) it messes with my back. It sucks getting older.

 After work my wife and I decided we would go out for dinner. The goal for me was prime rib and old fashioneds. Unfortunately for my wife her meal was terrible. How bad was it? Well, Miss Tipper Extraordinaire left no tip. Nothing, notta, zero, zilch. In 30 years I have never seen her do that. It wasn't just the food but the whole way they tried to push people through like we were cattle, not to mention a lousy wait staff. I don't have anything nice to say but I won't bash them by saying where it was. The place was packed and obviously others enjoy going there.
 To top things off, on the ride home while my wife thought she was gonna get sick, we ran into this:

 Not only was it long but it came to a complete stop. Grrr. Some days ya just can't win.

Later.

Flames, er No?

 Have you heard the one about the cheesehead that thought he could paint his bike? Turns out he keeps running into problems, and none of them are actual runs. So basically what we have is a pretty smooth coat of paint although nowhere close to perfect but it's good enough for my standards...

except for one spot where the paint is thin. You can't see it in the above pic but when the light is right its very obvious. Look at 11 o'clock of the bright spot created by the flashlight. Its like a ghost spot that pisses me off. If it weren't there I'd be just fine to leave this project alone. I have two choices and the first is to repaint at least that whole half of the tank. I'm not prepared to do that yet and instead I'm leaning on option two which is to cover it up.

 I laid out some wicked flames with narrow masking tape and started masking off the rest of the tank. At one point I decided to make a change and pulled off some tape. It turns out the tape damaged the clear coat. I think with all the layers of paint that maybe things are still a bit soft. The pic below shows the damage from the tape. The vertical lines aren't scratches, rather soap residue from trying to clean the mess but the mess wouldn't clean. Its not tape residue that you see. That paint feels just as smooth as can be. I had to take a power buffer and some Ultra-cut compound and go over the whole thing to smooth it back out where the tape was.

The pic below is another example of how the tape messed with the clear coat.

 So now what? If I use less aggressive tape will I be ok? I doubt it. If I wait six months will I be ok? Maybe. Should I just put a sticker over the bad spot? If I free hand airbrush a design I'm sure to foul things up because I really don't have enough practice for that... but odds are good I'll risk that anyway.
 Update: That was yesterday. This morning the tape damage reappeared. I don't know how because everything looked great after buffing it out.
 At this point I don't know what I'm gonna do with it.

Later.