Painting Thoughts

 

 

Here's a couple of things from the 520 Chain Cafe blog. I've been thinking about what I'm going to do when the time comes to paint a few of the projects. Looks like I could hang the swingarm on the old weight bench. Like every other red blooded American boy, I've got one of those. Hasn't been getting much service since I screwed up my chest almost four years ago. Or the previous 40 years as far as that goes. I could use the treadmill but then I wouldn't have a place to hang the laundry.

I do like the engine stand being pressed into service for a way to hold up the bike frame for painting. I could probably find/make something a little more sophisticated than a lug wrench to run through the swingarm boss but I've always admired good old Yankee ingenuity. A couple of pieces of heavy bar or angle with a stand-off on the end bolted to the engine stand would work real well. If it was bolted securely enough you could even swing the frame through a complete circle to make it easy to paint the bottom side. Easy to miss a spot when painting a frame unless you can get at the bottom easily and you have good lighting.

Which brings us to the bottom picture. That's a brooder lamp for you non rural folks. They're used to keep the baby chicks warm. I've got a couple of the same type of reflectors I set up to use for some black & white portrait work with regular photofloods. At the 520 Chain Cafe he uses the heat lamps to give some instant warmth to his shop. Not a bad idea at all, plus, you can swap out the heat bulbs and replace them with regular incandescent/LED/fluorescent bulbs for an auxiliary light source when needed. I wouldn't recommend them when painting, however. That seems like an invitation to burn the shop down, especially with a hot incandescent bulb and enamel or laquer paint. Might be useful to help bake the paint on after the spraying and clean up is done though.

I won't have anything big to paint for a while. I'll keep  thinking about a spray booth of some sort. I don't have that much to paint but I've got no place that's even remotely dust free or useable without moving a bunch of stuff around to keep it from getting over-spray on it.

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