Make paint while the sun shines

Well, here it is. The first of the top coats has begun. After some weeks and several under coats, another complete sanding, followed by a mishap with a collapsing scaffold, the colour is finally being applied.

It is so exciting to see it. The weather has warmed up enough to paint without heating.  A suitable heater was eventually found and ordered from America, but it still hasn't turned up. It won't go to waste though. It will get used for other jobs. Even this one, if the weather turns particularly cold again.

The under coats went on fairly smoothly, but the sanding took a lot of time, as well as cleaning the sculpture for each coat.

Just as Grant was finishing the final under-coat last week, the scaffold collased that he was standing on. Luckily he was only bruised and sore for a few days. The steel just buckled and twisted for no apparent reason. It's something that we will have to follow up on.

It's another warm day today and Grant will get another pod painted. It looks like it will need 3 to 4 coats to have a good coverage.

Getting ready to paint

Well, at long last, here is the new frame built and the first of the tarps to be fitted to make a tent for painting.

Amazingly, Grant built this by himself. He is developing good leg muscles with dozens of trips up and down the ladders each day.

It is turning into a very  large spray booth.

The tricky bit at the end was to work out how to make access for the tractor from both sides while making the frame sturdy enough to stop the tarps flapping.

The solution came in making a sliding panel for a doorway. This is now pretty much done. The area needs to be heated by an electric heater of some sort. So far, there has been no luck in finding a suitable one. The paint needs 8 hours+ of 16 degrees and above to work and the weather is not giving us that just yet.

Down with the scaffold

Well, a bit of time has lapsed since the last blog post. Progress has slowed since the cold has set in. Grant finished the sanding - finally - and has bought the paint. Unfortunately, the paint needs 16 degrees or higher to set properly and we are lucky to get above 13 in the middle of the day at the moment. The only option is to create an enclosed space around the sculpture to heat it. Otherwise, wait until the weather warms up.

Grant needs a good 6 or 8 hours of this temperature to do a coat. It is disappointing to be delayed at this final stage.

Grant decided to take the scaffold down since it is costing a lot in hire each month. He is planning to build another frame around the gantry to either create a tent for heating or else just a shelter for painting later in the season.

Yes, that's me. Freezing cold and in the rain being Miss Safety First. It was a bit scary standing up there dismantling the railing around me. It took half the time to take the scaffold down as putting it up.

It was cool to get these different perspectives on the sculpture. There will be this view at the train station, looking down on it from the railway pedestrian bridge.

Starting at the top, the scaffold is taken apart and thrown to the ground.

Half way there. We stopped because of the rain and finished up the next morning. It is amazing to see it wet and under this much light. Grant has done a fantastic job finishing the surface. It looks flawless to me.

Still going...

It is pretty amazing, Grant is still sanding. It is coming back to me now, how long the finishing process takes.

He is going solo at the moment. He didn't need Mark to do the last check for smoothness before painting, and now this last check has been going for more than 2 weeks.

We miss having Mark here. Grant particularly misses having his company and has run off a couple of times to have a change of scene and to chat with someone other than me. Right now he is surfing which does him the world of good.

So, I can't say when he will be painting, but it will be very exciting when he does.

The the hard part will be making the decision to stop.

So close now

That's right. It is down to the nitty gritty now. The paint is being ordered for next week.

Grant will probably go over it once more to make sure it is completely smooth in the next few days.

This is a new sander for very fine sanding. It is being run by a compressor.

All the blobs on the photo are from dust that constantly float around the sculpture.

The pink patches are from the car body filler.

Part of the reason for dust flying everywhere...

Quite a lot of the sanding today and yesterday has been by hand with Mark smoothing out the crevices and tighter curves leading away from the centre. The mechanical sanders just create grooves.

It's incredibly laborious but it is almost done now.

Sanding, sanding and more sanding

This part of the job is must be feeling endless now. The weather has been really cold and every square centimetre of the sculpture needs careful and precise sanding.

At least they are not held up by the rain or cold. There was squally weather a couple of days ago and they just kept moving around to find dry sides of the sculpture to sand.

Grant has been using car body filler to go over any dents in the surface.

Grant devised this plastic applicator which smooths the body filler over the curves of the sculpture. It is sanded after it dries.

Mark uses his hands to find rough spots. They are so small now that you can't see them while the sculpture is unpainted.

Fibreglassing

This part has been a very sticky job. The glass fibres in the resin stick to everything.

Sheets of it are hanging over the tractor platform and get stuck on over the sculpture using resin.

Grant found that putting a fibreglass layer on towards the end stopped the sculpture from cracking with the expansion and contraction in changing weather.

Mark's knee has finally poked through his pants altogether. They simply cracked open. Grant offered to fibreglass it over again.

The weather has been so cold that the resin wouldn't set, so the boys got on with another job this afternoon. Mark will thank me for including this photo!