it’s been quiet, but

The day job has been a little overwhelming, but I’m now feeling like there’s time for the car. This is a bit of a pity-me post, because there’s been a cavalcade of stuff go wrong on the car jobs. It’s been a cascade of things interrupting other things and generally getting in the way.

Problem 1 – a mild amount of meh

 

Do you feel intimidated?

I have got myself a new sander to make the access hatches the right height as well as a host of other straight edge sanding jobs. It’s a great bit of gear, and the photo shows the gist of it. I have replaced my bench-grinder for it. First job is to secure it to the bench – best way for my bench is self tapping screws into the wood. Off I go, and find my screw-driver is running low. The power-tool superhero in my head says “No Problem! – we have AIR POWER”, so I put the screwdriver down and get my air-screwdriver. This leads me to problem #2:

Problem 2 – My compressor carked it

I asked the nice people on locost builders who think it’s probably a starter-cap. This is a £10 part, rather than the other issue, which is that I may have seized my all-in-one pump/compressor unit, which is a £150 part. Either way, until I find the time to get it out from its boxed-in sound reducing cabinet I built, I can’t attach the grinder (minor woe) but I also can’t spray the clear gel-coat on my transmission tunnel top, which is a larger pain in the arse. I’m 50/50 about spraying the gel-coat. It gives me two advantages: Firstly, I have some UV protection (minor) and secondly, I introduced some minor scratches in the mould, and having a gel-coat to polish reduces the risk of going through to the carbon if I want a super-excellent finish on the car. I can work around this a bit by making a the tunnel top a little resin rich. I’m only infusing the facing layer to start with.

Problem 3 – my oven is too small

I always knew this day would arrive. I knew my oven wasn’t big enough for the transmission tunnel, so I thought: “let’s make something of the day work out, and I’ll extend the oven”. It was at this point that I realised I miscalculated how much kingspan I had and couldn’t finish the oven.

So, I have a broken compressor, an oven that needs work, and a part that I can’t spray.

Solution: whiskey, and tomorrow I’ll lay the part without gel-coat and make it a little resin rich. I’m not looking forward to getting the compressor out and diagnosing it’s ills though.

Feed the attention-whore