Sunday, April 1st

Alright, I guess it's just the primer. It's still loading up the sand paper, but I discovered the lighter I rub the easier it is to sand the primer level. Boy let me tell you I wish the bumps would show up on camera. It's a downfall of using aerosol cans. You'll always get what's called orange peel, they call it that because if you look at the surface of an orange, that's what the surface of the paint looks like. Bumpy. I managed to sand the primer level, only took about 2 hours, but patients is the key to a great finish. I cleaned up all the dust and wiped the drum down. I then was able to put on 4 coats of paint, 2 really light coats, 1 wet coat, 1 final coat just because I wasn't happy with the final color tone. I let each coat dry about an hour each. Then I had to look at the paint in the sun, it makes the metal flakes in it sparkle, it looks really cool in the sun. I tried to take a pic for you all to see, it's shows up some, but in person it really looks good. At the end of the day I sprayed on 1 coat of clear coat. You might be able to see some of the bumpy surface on the picture, that's the orange peel. I'll spray on 3 more coats of clear, then I'll level the orange peel to a smooth surface. Next will come the tribal stripe around the outside. The sign shop guy hasn't called me about that yet, but I have 3 more days of clear coat, so I'm not in that big of a hurry for it.