Seeing Red
After paying the bills, and legal fees, I'm outta dough for a while. Boo. This doesn't change what I can and can't fix, just the order I operate in. I can't do the interior carpeting, for example, cuz that requires carpet. And, rather than focus on test drives (read: buying diesel @$4.30/gal), I'll be focusing on the pop-top. I have all the necessary materials for prepping the work. I'll need a few extra hands in a couple of weeks for actual install, but I'll get to that later. First, the replacement...
I bought an old Riviera pop top (and all the corresponding guts) from a friend of mine almost by accident. I originally went looking for just a replacement bellows for my original Westy pop top. The old one had dry-rotted. I'd planned to figure out a way of making the penthouse space large enough for 2 people, but the cost of a new bellows was like $300 plus shipping. Ye-ouch! Then, once I add in the cost and effort of making a double bed up there, it starts becoming some real scratch. I hit the Samba and found a complete, local top. I discovered, though that as I prepped the top and luggage rack, both had damage. The luggage rack was / is especially bad, with at least 3 repair spots, none of which looked all that great. I spent about 3 hours sanding them down, and they look passable now. It was too late to go back and not go with the new top, but I'm kinda bummed about the damage spots.Pushing White
The top, other than having the damage, had been sitting outside under a tarp for a while. Being the great Northwest, that means a green haze appeared on it. A full scrub-down, followed by running over both the rack and the top with 60-grit sandpaper prepared the surface for paint. I already had a gallon of hi-gloss white, so I finished my Saturday rolling a coat of white oil onto them. Since I don't have a clean room or a spray-booth, or even a vented garage, the inevitable bugs and dirt appeared in the paint. Sunday, I sanded the bugs and dirt out, and then sanded everything with 220-grit. Today, I rolled a second thin coat on. Looks nice, but I'm concerned about how the high gloss on the damaged rack will look outside. We'll see.Grooving Blue
The 4th of July is the annual Oregon Food Bank Portland Blues Festival. I hit the first day (Friday night), and listened on KBOO to all of the rest of the festival. Great sounds, and it really powered me through all the stuff I did this weekend. If I had a complaint, it would be KBOO's consistently losing their feed from the stage through the first 3 days. I don't think they went more than an hour and 20 minutes without the music getting interupted with this horrible "GRZZT" noise, and then dead-air. In fact, I'd bet they didn't have a single artist go through their entire set on the radio on Saturday or Sunday. Whatever the problem, they had it solved for Sunday, though.That's it for tonight. I did a bunch of other things this weekend, so I have other posts to produce this week. I have the boys, so my time may be limited. Still, I'll try to at least hit some highlights. Hal, I got your comment, and I was thinking the same thing! I have an old bilge-blower around here somewhere. I can tie that into some drier venting and whamo, I have a vented garage. After I find the bilge-blower, it'll be a little easier... and after I get paid again :)
pictures:
top - the luggage rack after lots of sanding. Still looks pretty awful
upper middle - the luggage rack after the first coat of paint.
lower middle - the state of the original paint. boom box playing the Blues Festival in the background
bottom - mid-sanding. I don't have a picture of it finished! Ay.
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