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10 April, 2011

No Title As Yet

The past few days as I've driven into town, I've seen this elderly bus being painted at at small shop beside the Corozal Glass Shop on 7th Avenue (or the Northern Highway). At first, it was rather sloppily primed with white primer, but bit by bit, it's turned into quite a nice paint job. Now, it's parked by Vivi's Meat Pie Shop on College Street (I think). A rather spectacular job all in all.
'Further' Reincarnated?
And now, a bit more on the story of the awning and what will be holding it up. After I had the poles installed and Isaiel welded the cross-braces, I thought it was still a little sensitive in the wind - especially with no load on it yet. I had the opportunity, since Isaiel was staying in the pool house for a couple of nights, while he worked another welding job in the north part of town, to get four corner brackets cut, and have him weld them in place.
Isaiel Welding A Short Bracket
As near as I can tell for now, they have stiffened the whole thing up considerably. We'll see in a bit just how successful this is.
And Welding Another Bracket
Since the brackets are now welded in place, I took the opportunity to paint the poles, cross-pieces, and corner brackets. I'm about half done with the whole process. It was kind of involved. Since all the bits were made of galvanized steel, I first coated them with Ospho, which is a balanced formula of phosphoric acid, dichromate, wetting agents and extenders. It also has the ability to etch the zinc coating on the steel. You can either apply it, wait about a half hour and hose it off, or let it dry thoroughly and leave it as a pre-primer sort of thing. That's what I did.

Then I had to prime everything with a direct-to-metal (DTM) primer, and finally I'm coating it all with a DTM acrylic enamel. I found a blue color that almost matches the blue trim of the pool house. So far, I've got one coat of blue on one half of the whole assembly. I have to prime the assembly that is mounted to the pump house and then I can paint that as well. The blue requires two coats. With luck, it should last for quite a while.
From A Distance, Progress
It's fun painting the bits from on high with my new 8-foot aluminum ladder. It's had a proper breaking in, already spattered with Ospho, primer, and paint. It's beginning to look like a proper ladder.
Climbing Up To Paint The Top
I can comfortably paint one whole section (one coat), starting at 7:00 AM, and finishing at about 9:00 AM. Just perfect, as it really starts to heat up about then.
Hard At It
And, just as a reminder, these are several photos of me actually working. Not only working, but working up a sweat too. Proof positive that it can be done.
Paying Attention To Details
This evening, we were going to have Alan and Elsie over for a farewell dinner. Wouldn't you know it, about an hour and a half before, we lost current (electricity). We called them and apologized that we were going to have to cancel the dinner. Too bad. I was looking forward to having some of that Kielbasa. Oh well, two large helpings of a very nice salad helped satisfy my hunger.

Tomorrow Doug and I will be heading to Belize City, to stop at Duke Marine and pick up some wide nylon webbing for Kent, the upholsterer I'm using for this project, to bind around the edges of the shade cloth. He's already got the grommets (I think). If all goes well, we might have the awning in place by the first of next week.

Tuesday, I go back to Dra. Monica to have the root canal... Finally. Even with Dr. Jose's surgery from Thursday a week ago, My mouth is still really sensitive to hot and cold. Major bummer.

That's it for now.

Cheers.

3 comments:

JRinSC said...

Looking good, Dave. I wondered about the ability of the awning assembly to handle some wind. Glad you added the braces. Nice looking job.

Oh, its ok to start taking pictures of others working. I didn't mean to cause you such extra effort in the heat!! Just kidding... enjoying watching your project come together.

Thanks,

Julian

ps coming down for a month next January, but I think this time it will be out in San Pedro.

Vivien said...

The bus looks kinda like the Partridge Family Bus.
Good to see the pool cover project continues to move along.
Your tooth will most likely feel much better (a few days) after the root canal. Take at least 400mg of Ibuprofen (Motrin/Advil) right before they do the root canal. I take Tylenol too as well as my usual pre-root canal routine. My whole routine is too crazy to mention in public. Good Luck.

Dave Rider said...

Hi Julian,
It's no trouble - work I would have been doing anyway. From 7 to 9 is a nice time of morning to be out there working. And, it's not like I'm not already sweating, the walk with the dogs has taken care of that. That's partly why I get cracking so early, right after the walk, cause when I'm done, then a nice cool shower really feels great.
Cheers,
Dave

Hi Vivien,
Partridge Family... Hmmm, I hadn't thought of that. I was going for Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters sort of thing.
Thanks for the advice on the drugs. I will take some before I head down there this morning. I'll let you know how it turns out.
Cheers,
Dave