Gas, tires, oil.

The paint wasn’t too bad on the fender, so I just wet sanded it with 320 grit wet/dry paper.

I put some water with a trace of soap in an old squeeze bottle, some people use a garden hose, but you have to watch that you don’t ding the paint with the nozzle. Others dip the paper in a bucket, but I have found that grit (sand, dirt or whatever) can contaminate the water and leave scratches.
I like to use a piece of thin plastic foam inside my paper to prevent finger marks from getting sanded in to the paint. Cut the paper in half, then fold it in thirds for hand sanding.

Afterwards, all the water must removed from any crevices, otherwise, it may drip out when you painting and ruin the job. Get the nozzle of an air gun as close as possible and repeatly work over the whole part.

Here you can see a few drops forced out from under a rivet by the air pressure.

I picked up the car-shaped sanding block at a yardsale for a couple bucks (actually, nearly everthing in the picture is from a yardsale, flea market or auction, including the shelf itself).

Maybe blocking out a car won’t suck so much with this stylish block.

Before I put paint on my front fender, I had to tighten up the rivets holding it to the bracket. On the same fender for my trike, I drilled out the rivets and plug welded the holes. On my daily driver, I just wanted it to not rattle, so I peened the rivets on the anvil. I put a piece of cardboard underneath to prevent chipping of the paint.

The bracket was starting to rust, so I decided to paint it too. I removed the rust and scuffed the chrome with some 120 grit on the DA.

Next time, wet sanding, marblizing and clear coat.

I finally got some painting done last weekend. I did a forward control bracket for the trike, the front fender for my sportster and the aol CD case that is the prize for the Name that Tool winner. Today I’ll just cover the CD case.

First, I had to find a way to hold the pieces for painting. I used drywall screws to join some block of wood, then I used a staplegun to attach some duct tape sticky side out. They stuck really well, to remove them I had to cut the tape, then peel it off.

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I needed some bolts to attach the brake master cylinder bracket to my trike project. I like using stainless instead of chrome because I’ve had to replace lots of rusted chrome. I start with an ordinary sst bolt.

First I use the side of a grinding wheel to remove the raised letters.

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This is the flyleaf from a 1940s copy of “Audel’s Machinist’s Handy Book”. Machine shop lore says that the lathe is the only tool that can reproduce itself. I think that’s a bit of a stretch though, it would have to be a particularly well outfitted lathe with a milling and grinding attachment.

In with the diecast cars mentioned a couple posts down, was this very strange toy.

Anyone have an idea what it is? The individual pieces aren’t to the same scale, but are made from the same plastic (and were tied together with string).


It seems that something is missing, but I have no idea how its supposed to work. The legs on the figure can move independently, but don’t seem to be spring loaded.

The brake master cylinder on my wife’s ‘82 4x4 diesel suburban was starting to go bad. The brake pedal would sometimes slowly sink down when you were stopped at a light. I like to stopper the lines when I disconnect them (to keep out dirt and air), in the pic below I have used some plugs that are actually made for transmission cooler lines, but work well here.

Here’s the new one (not rebuilt, new was only $10 more) bolted on.

The instructions always say to “bench bleed” the master cylinder in vise, using a screwdriver for a plunger. I say, the hell with that, just bolt it up and run the hoses back into the resevoir. Then you can work the air out by pumping the pedal (slowly). By the way, the plastic adaptors and hoses didn’t come with the new master cylinder, I had saved them from a previous one (in fact, the last one I bought didn’t have them either, a disapointing trend).

So my landlord decided to redo the roof last week, he tore off the shingles Thursday and Friday. Saturday morning, 4:30 am, we wake up to find water dripping out of the light fixture onto our bed. Of course, it was raining. One of the things this prompted me to do was clear off a shelf in a closet (to get to the attic). I found a box of Matchbox, Husky, Corgi and Tootsie toy die cast cars that I had bought at a yard sale a couple years ago. The guy wanted a dollar a piece, I paid $20 for all (48 pieces). I’ll post pic of some of the nice/rare ones soon. Here’s poorly lit shot of a few.

In the foreground is a studebaker film car, behind you can see 2 Monkees GTO wagons from the tv show as well as a “Man from U.N.C.L.E” and James Bond car (they have a missile launcher and ejection seat, respectively, with several missiles and ejectees).

One of the few things I got done over the weekend was changing the oil in my sportster. I like to check the old filter for metal particles as a diagnostic tool. You need to cut it open because the oil flows from the outside in. First, pop a hole in the side, near the top, I used a screwdriver.

Then I use a nibbler to cut all the way around.

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