Staycation-Painting My Roof

  This years annual bike vacation has been replaced with some home diy. Today I want to talk about how much it sucks to paint an old house. The siding is aluminum and only needs to be hit with a pressure washer. That is yet to come. The overhang is a real pain in the ass because of the amount of scraping that needs to be done.

 The loose stuff comes off quite easily. The pain in the ass part is that half of this overhang can't be done while standing in the lift basket. I use the lift to get on the lower roof and then squat/kneel while scraping. Painting these areas is worse because I also have to deal with a gallon of paint that I've been setting on the sloped roof and holding in place with my foot. I know it sounds like a bunch of whining and it is. I'm typing this after a 13 hour day of scraping and painting and I'm sore.

 Now just regular old scraping from a comfortable position isn't too bad. I hand scraped about 80% of the roof with a 2 or 3 inch Red Devil scraper. I was able to kneel on a pad in the lift basket and just scrape away. I probably spent 1/3 of my time getting up, working the lift controls, and getting back down and scraping. What that thing needs is a bluetooth control that straps to your wrist or something similar.

 Once I had everything scraped I used my handy dandy Echo battery powered handheld blower to clean up the mess. Speaking of mess, this roof paint is some nasty stuff to work with,

 I had some inconsistent results from the first day where the first bucket of paint dried a different shade than the second. For this reason I spent some extra time mixing all the buckets this morning. Once I popped the lid on these things, some of them had a hard layer on top that seemed like the aluminum. Others had a less hard layer that seemed more tar-like. My handy dandy old school Craftsman drill handled the chore of mixing just fine.

 

 In the end its all about protecting the metal roof. Appearance is a plus too and it doesn't look too bad. Now is that because it was so far gone that anything would look better or does it really look decent? The nice thing about roof paint jobs is that they all look good because you're always looking at them from a distance. 

Later.

What Day Is It? Sunday Late Edition

  I've been pretty good about posting at regular times on Wednesdays and Sundays. Today not so much. I'm taking a few days off to paint my house and I have a lift here to make the job easier. Last time I painted my roof I used hook ladders. That sucked. Let me repeat, that really sucked and I was twenty years younger when I did that. This time I have a 55 foot lift at my disposal but its not for an unlimited time. Its a rental item from work and it needs to go back. Sure I'm paying to use it but not full rate and there is a guy that wants it Wednesday so theres not time for dickin around.

 Besides the roof, I'm scraping and painting the overhang and also using the lift to do the section of garage above the greenhouse. I'll probably use some vacation time to seal that drive in the above pic too. The only good news about this whole project is that I'll probably be too old and feeble to do this job the next time its needed, so I've got that going for me.

 As I type this sunday night it has begun to rain. I have the roof about 1/3 painted. Of that 1/3, 1/2 was done early in the day and it looks like its doing ok. The other half was done just a short time ago and looks like it might be a "do over". Grrrrr. The forecast for tomorrow isn't ideal either. Double Grrrrr.

Later.

Garage Makeover Part 6-Floor Paint

 Last Sunday I showed you that I was grinding the concrete floor in my garage in preparation for paint. My main concern was degreasing and the goal never was to have a mirror finish. I was afraid if I made the floor too smooth that it would be slippery. In fact when the grinder was leaving swirl marks in the concrete I was happy about it.  The big holes and pitting from salt damage were what I was trying to clean up and my resurfacing compound and the floor grinding did a decent job of repairing that.

  If I had to do it over again the only change would be to use more paint. Not to cover things up better but to get better coverage. Its all in the video:

Later.

Garage Makeover Part 5

 To be honest I really have no idea what episode this is of the makeover but 5 seemed about right. I'm still working on the floor which should be getting a coat of paint later today, for sure before the next video, so you've got that to look forward to. If you get nothing else from todays video at least be aware that if you choose to paint an old greasy, chipped concrete floor, you should be prepared for a lot of work.

Later.

Sour Grapes

  This week I'm reliving a personal hell that I endured about twenty years ago when I decided to paint and carpet our spiral staircase. Its all part of our grand plan to remodel this dump one room at a time. I remember what a pain in the ass it was to get a smooth coat of paint on such a pieced together metal structure so this time around I cheated a bit and went with a copper color that dries with a hammered effect.

 The color actually goes well with the other walls it runs against.

  So far I've stretched this paint job out three days and it will for sure need a fourth day because of a separate support structure that stands next to the staircase. I'm planning on putting that off for now because it doesn't need to be done before the carpeting happens. That job will be its own nightmare. Right now I'm just getting along by tipping back a few cool ones and catching a paint fume buzz.

 The carpet gets cut into funny shapes then stapled to plywood that lays on each metal step. The one advantage we found during this paint job was that the cats won't climb the metal steps. If I would have known this before there would have been times I'd have pulled the plywood steps to keep the cats out. It may happen when I start remodeling the bathroom up there.

 In other news, I have made a new personal policy regarding eating grapes that I need to stick to. No eating grapes in the dark. Especially gas station grapes. I bought a cup of grapes for breakfast the other day. A much healthier decision than a cafe mocha and breakfast burrito, or so I thought. It was a dark ride to work and I just popped open the cup, set it in the cup holder and started eating as I drove. Some of those grapes had the consistency of a puss sack and I'm sure that if I had seen what they looked like they would have never gone in my mouth. Part of me said "man up and eat" another part of me spit a few out the window.
 All that morning I had a buzz going. Was it the grapes? Was it the large black coffee? I'm thinking somehow it was the grapes because the next day I bought another large coffee that was labeled as having more caffeine and there was no all morning buzz like before.
 Tomorrow I'm having orange juice and a banana. That seems safe.

Later.

Going Backwards

 It looks like the end of December was the last time I reported to you about practicing painting flames. It had been so long that I had to go back in the blog and look it up. A couple weekends ago I took a few moments to give it another shot and the results make me think I'm going backwards with this project. I have a few ideas floating around upstairs but they seem to look like ass when applied to a tank. This time I wanted to add blue and green to the mix just to see how it would look.

 I don't even know what I was thinking here but I know it didn't work.

 This blend of red, orange and yellow starting from the bottom of the pic and working up may be useful later on. I guess I just wanted to see if it would work.

 Creating layers is easy enough but I need to work on some 3d depth where a lower layer comes forward through the upper layers. To be honest I haven't thought much about how to do that. I think the problem is that I don't start with much of a plan and actually at this early stage thats fine because I really need to learn what can be done before trying to tie it all together. What I really need is to start practicing more regularly. We'll see.

Later.

What Day Is It?

 I don't know how retired guys keep track of the days. Throw in a holiday or two, a weekend and a snow event on a day I should have had off and I'm lost. I asked my phone and the voice on the other end says its Wednesday.  I'm thinking by next Monday I'll be back on track...unless it snows over the weekend and I have to go out plowing.
 I took another shot at laying out some flames on my practice tank. I felt things were starting out ok...

 If you remember I said I wanted to keep the pattern a bit more open and leave more of the base black paint exposed through the flames. I know the above pic looks goofy but that base layer gets buried quick so it seems I don't have to be very detailed in a pattern. Or at least thats what I'm trying here.

 The red candy and orange candy layers are on at this point and while I hate the way it looks, I like a couple of things I did like trying to weave patterns and colors in and out of each other. I was also able to create highlights by not saturating the candy layer. I left a little base layer show through in spots and thats the lighter look around some of the edges. That concluded what I wanted to see in this practice session and the next practice session went on right over the top.

 I like traditional hot rod flames and have this idea that if I start at the flame tip end of the tank and just keep weaving and overlapping flames, working towards the front of the tank, they don't really need a starting point. Two things learned...I need more stencils despite having cut four more just for this attempt and that stencils get wet and can transfer paint to the project when flipped. That seems like a no brainer but once you get rolling those things can be forgotten.

 I also tried painting individual flames in multiple candy colors but that didn't work well. Probably because I didn't seal each color with clear before moving to the next. I don't know what the hell I'm doing so I'm gonna try that one again.

 What I found out from last week was that combining real fire and hot rod flames yields questionable results. At some point I need to decide what style I'm after. Real fire, hot rod style or just some mishmash like in the above pic.

Later.

Back Into The Fire

 I had some time to kill on Saturday so took the opportunity to get back to practicing painting flames. These flames are supposed to be "true fire" but I'm a long way away from getting that effect. This session was on an old yamaha tank that I've been messing around with and will help me practice what I want to ultimately do. That is paint horizontal flames, not camp fires.

 So my thought was to have a broader open flame on the leading edge of the tank and then have the flames stretch out more to points. You know, the way it would look if I were on fire and hauling ass. This first coat is white with a drop of red and two or three drops of yellow along with reducer. Thats the greyish looking paint in the above pic. I took this pic after starting to apply the candy red.

 After the red was added it was clear coated. So far it looks ok. The next step is to add another layer of flames over the top and color those in with candy orange, followed by a layer of clear as seen in the pic below.

 The next step is to do the same thing in a lighter color such as yellow. This is where things went bad.

 I got bored with the process and started changing techniques which just doesn't work. In the future I need to choose one method and stick with it.

 So I learned a lot. First thing is I need to wear some bitch mittens cuz this paint is tough to get off my hands.

 Another thing I learned was to clean the air brush better afterwards. It took me almost as much time to get the brush ready as it did to do the actual painting. It was worth it though because I never got any splatter like I did in past sessions. Anything that looks like splatter is underneath. I just keep squirting black over this tank without any sanding or prep.
 A keen eye will also notice the same four stencils repeat themselves either in the same orientation or flipped. I need to buy or make more stencils. I have found that for me stencils look best and freehand is good just for highlights and blending stuff together.

 I know in past practice runs I was able to get more depth and the next time out I'm gonna aim for more of the base black to show through. I'm just so early into this and don't have a technique down yet. Here's another thing that has occurred to me. If I can't make it look like true fire then maybe I skip the "true" part and use different colors like blues and greens. It might look ok. On the other hand, I'm only using white, yellow and red base paints and three candy colors. Maybe more oranges are needed?

Sooo, I just went back and looked at the tank. Parts of it are better than I originally felt. If this were at a bike show I'm sure I'd spend ten minutes with my nose only a foot away whilst checking it out. I tried different lighting and angles and these pics still don't do it justice as far as depth goes.

 No matter. it will get covered up and I'll try again. More practice needed!

Later.

No Progress

 A welcome cool down is on the way but man its been hot. On Sunday my wife and I spent the day on the bike. It was a scorcher. We got home at 6pm and it was still 94 degrees. We were looking forward to the relief of our central air conditioning but when we walked into the house we were greeted by temps in the 80's and two pissed off cats. A quick check of things made me believe the ac compressor finally took a crap. Its been making noise for a few years now and was 20 years old before we bought this house a few decades ago. Monday we were laughed at by store managers when we inquired about window air conditioner availability. Apparently everyone was sold out. My wife made a post on facebook about our situation and her sister came through with a new in the box unit she was hoarding and friend Chris came through with a deal on a 12,000 btu unit she wasn't using. Thanks ladies! Its not cool being hot and Scotty Too Hotty was over heating.
 While my wife was chasing down ac units, I was messin around in the paint booth trying to get my true fire flames to look true. I don't think I made much progress but I don't think I'm going backwards. I need to come up with a style that fits me and I suppose that will come with time. I watched one tutorial video where the dude claimed he had about 130 hours practice before he was happy with his work. Screw that. If I don't see progress in the next few attempts then I may have an airbrush setup for sale. Here are attempts 3 and 4. I think my next try will be of some long thin flames or at least something that is wider at the point of origin than at the tip. At the very least I want to add some dimension to these flames where the layers interact with each other, rather than just lay on top of each other.

 The more I paint these things the more I realize that the ones that should look like true fire are not necessarily the ones I like. Maybe thats just because I'm not good at them yet or maybe because I've always liked old school  hot rod flames. I have a feeling my "style" may end up somewhere between real and fantasy with more freehand and less stencil. We'll see.
 Ultimately these flames will end up on the sportster tank. You may remember when I told you about taping off some flames to hide a blemish in my paint job. The tape reacted with the clear coat and left it looking like shit.

 You can see some irregularities in the paint by the reflection of the light.

 I wet sanded and then buffed the paint and the marks went away. I suppose I could just bolt the tank on and ride the bike till I'm ready to paint it but I may hold off on that for a while. I'll keep you posted.

Later.

Friday Night Flames

 I had a chance Friday night to putz around in the spray booth again and practice true fire flames. My first try was ok I guess if you squint just right but more important is that I learned a lot. This is my second attempt and while its obvious I need work with the layout of the flames, I am happier with the colors. My yellow isn't green this time which is a good thing. Red in the background is ok but my orange could be brighter.

 I quit before adding the last layer of flames or highlights so it looks weird but as it grew I realized something was wrong. I'm not gonna paint a campfire on my sporty so why am I practicing these vertical flames? Next time I'll lay them out horizontal and stretch them out as though the bike is on fire and haulin ass. Thats really the traditional look I would like to be able to paint. IF, and thats a big if, I get to the point where I feel I'm ready to put them on the bike then maybe I'd like to add something in the fire. Not sure what, or if I want it to be obvious but I think something should live in there. Maybe Waldo or better yet the rat from my stickers.

Later.

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.

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.

April Showers Bring Snow Plowers

  Its not unusual to get snow in April and I enjoy plowing snow at work but this close to the riding season is a real punch in the gut. Just when the weather was hovering above freezing and the roads were almost salt free, we get the biggest storm of the season. Here we got a foot of snow while just north in Green Bay I heard they got their second largest snow accumulation on record at two feet. That's not lake effect snow, no sir that's good old fashioned precipitation.
 For me this event meant an eighteen hour tour of duty in a plow truck. That was preceded by an all day run by the first shift and will be followed up by a clean up shift. I spent the better part of the next day in a truck cleaning loading docks and trailer parking stalls. We won't be done before the next predicted storm of 3-5" arrives. The wind has been strong and with the ice buildup we had the result was a lot of downed trees and branches. Its good to be busy and have work available but we really would rather doing spring-like activities.

 The delivery man was at my house and dropped off some stuff I can play with in the spray booth. Some of the stencils are cool but the narrow masking tape will likely be the answer to finishing the sportster tank. We'll see, because I still haven't settled on a design yet.

Later.

Air Brush Or Tool From Hell

 I'm about sick of old man winter hangin on so long into spring and I'm sure you are too. We are in the middle of a winter storm warning as I write this on Saturday. I suppose that its because of the wind and freezing rain and there's talk of accumulating snow up to five feet depending on who you listen to. We already got a lot of rain, then a few inches of snow and then a warming spurt. Now its just windy and cold again with a layer of ice on everything. Fun times. My wife needed to use unconventional methods to check the mail. Apparently the mail man didn't have a hammer handy because the box was empty.

 All this means I have time to dink around in the shop. I'm still fighting the paint job on the sporty and BSA. In fact I resprayed the BSA and I hate the way it turned out and will be doing it over again. No hurry, its been decades since that bike was on the road so I suppose a little longer on the paint wont matter. Half the sporty tank looks good. The other half looks like ass. I'm not sure what I want to do next so I just walked away from it for now. I screwed up the front fender and repainted it again for the fourth time. Painting is something I wish I were better at so I'll just keep practicing.
 I spent some time with the air brush and found out that the crappy paint was my problem with flow through the gun. Actual air brush paint and reducer flows pretty nice. I spent quite a few hours trying different lines, patterns and such only to confirm the problem is that I have no talent.

 I ordered a french curve and some stencils because I have a feeling I'll be better at lines and graphics than freehand drawing. My first attempt at blending some colors looks very elementary school like but I'll keep practicing.

  I've decided to check out some painting videos to speed up the learning process here before spring arrives. Its too crappy outside to do anything else.

Later.

Sportster Fender

 Last week I told you about the sporty tank and my painting adventures. I decided to get some polishing compound and buff it out just to see how it would look. The quality of the paint in the areas where I sanded it out decent look pretty good even though the job as a whole is quite amateurish. Heres the deal. I'm thinking the weather is gonna break soon and I want that bike on the road. I know if I continue with my graphics plan the whole project will be set back at least a few weeks. I can't accept that so the tank is done for now...maybe even till next winter. I still need to paint the front fender and I decided to get the bulk of it sanded the traditional way and the uneven areas with paint stripper. Wow that stuff works good.

 It didn't take much to get the old paint off and I followed up by filling a small dent. This time around I'll use lacquer rather than enamel paint and see how it goes.

 My air brush adventures hadn't gone so well but I don't even know what I was using for paint. Just a jar of some hobby paint that didn't go through the brush well. I decided to order actual air brush paint and I'll give it another try on my test tank.

 Even if things go all right in the air brush department I don't think I'll attempt anything on the sporty till I get some practice in. I was thinking about painting a design on my new toolbox hutch roll up door. If I can't get that right then I have no business trying to paint a bike tank. We'll see how it goes.

Later.

Gloom, Despair And Agony On Me

 No this isn't an episode of Hee Haw but I'm a bit bummed out. Nothing serious, just struggling with my painting adventures. I've self taught myself a whole lot of things NOT to do and hoping I'll stumble upon the right way of approaching these projects without fouling it all up. I find myself making a mistake and then starting over. I'll get past the step where I made the mistake and then screw up some other step. I'll then start over and get those two right only to eff something else up. I do have to admit that I'm fine doing it this way rather than following some online instructions or reading a book. Hey, here's a rare financial tip from the Greasy Shop Rag. Buy stock in Rustoleum paints because they're experiencing a nice sales burst right now. Ace hardware is doing pretty good on sandpaper sales too.
 Lets start with the Sporty because its not half bad.

 It looks pretty decent in the shop but out in the sunlight I can see a few light scratches. Many of them will be hidden by the graphics I want to paint on here but and if history repeats itself I'll be sanding the whole damn thing down anyway.

 I think I posted a pic of the BSA tank looking kinda glossy. It had a few flaws in it and when I tried to wet sand them out I went through to the primer. That was a blessing anyway cuz I knew the whole thing could have looked better.

 I'm hoping I can pick up the process from here without having to sand it all the way down. I've had some funny reactions going on at times so its really a crap shoot. Here's a prime example on the sportster front fender:

 I had been giving some thought to the graphics for the sporty and decided it was time to get a tank mounted on my air brush compressor. On a recent resupply run for sandpaper I picked up and adapter that connects a propane tank to 1/4" pipe tread. This allowed me to tee a tank inline from the compressor to a regulator and then to the paint gun. It works much better but my skills in that type of painting are also lacking. I've been practicing on an old tank with piss poor results. Maybe I should just paint all my bikes with bed liner and wrap them in barbed wire. It worked for the Rat Turd.

  That's all for now. Hopefully next time we talk about paint it has something to do with waxing or polishing and not painting.

Later.

Paint Booth Adventures

 Saturday afternoon was all mine to work in the shop and the biggest project on my mind right now is getting the sporty running. I want to get out on the road even if there is some salt residue out there. Right now the streets are probably ok but the forecast is for snow and cold temps so more salt is sure to go down... starting the waiting game cycle all over again. I'm getting revved up to go for a ride, even if its a cold and miserable one.
 I have a lot to do on the sporty to get it on the road but today we'll just talk about paint. I've talked about sanding the tank down and paint bubbling and other miserable reactions with the current paint and the old paint. I've gotten past that and am now moving forward with the base color,  (duh, black). At the same time that I'm painting the sporty tank I've decided to paint the BSA tank, (duh, black).
 Both tanks got their primer wet sanded. I used grey for the BSA and dark grey primer for the Sporty. Why? Because they say dark primer should go under dark paint and the topcoat is the same for both and I want to see if there really is a difference. I guess I'm a "show me" kind of guy. I'm not a pro painter and I'm just squirting these tanks with rustoleum so experimenting seems appropriate.

 The first thing I had to do to the BSA tank was wet sand the primer and make it smooth.

 The next step turned out to be making a simple pedestal to set the tank on during painting.

 This is the BSA tank with three coats of black sprayed within ten minutes of each other. The objective is to build a thick enough layer that can be wet sanded without sanding through.

 The next step for the BSA tank will come in at least a few days when it gets wet sanded. At that point it will look something like the sporty tank does in the pic below. For those of you that don't paint, this is the basic finish of the black paint after sanding. Yes it looks dull but the clear coat will bring it back to life. Any imperfections you see are gonna be covered by the center cowl or the paint scheme I'm planning on adding later. Why mess with it when I can hide it!

 After three layers of clear this is what the tank looks like now.

 It doesn't look terrible but I think it will get wet sanded and clear coated again. At this point if I'm ever gonna up my game in the painting department then I need to do some experimenting. Worst case scenario is I screw the whole thing up and it looks like ass. You've seen some of the crap I'll ride and you know that really doesn't matter to me that much. Knees in the breeze and all that.
 By the way, this little 4 foot by 9 foot spray booth is one of the smartest things I've ever done. It sure is nice to have a clean dust free and stink free indoor place for these projects.

Later.