Things you can't do when you're married

Wet-sanding a motorcycle gas tank on the kitchen table, while using the 'good towels' and watching Formula One racing on the TV and drinking a beer.

I feel like I could add "in your underwear", but that would have been highly impractical. I have some standards of decorum.

To quote The Princess Bride- "Lemme 'splain."

It was hot out. Really hot out. So hot, that the first can of satin clear I bought failed after about 5 minutes and a couple coats. I just figured it was a lousy can and returned it to the mighty depot, only to the second one do the same thing after about 5 minutes. So I decided maybe the heat and humidity was playing havoc a bit with the paint cans and thought I would let it be for the day.

Though I think I may have enough coats to just call it finished and move on. Which I may in fact, do just that.

However, heat and humidity aside,  considering it was indeed the weekend and my big chance to make some progress, I grabbed 3 or 4 water bottles and headed out the garage with the aforementioned gas tank that was sitting on the kitchen table in it's own cloud of chemical fumes....

Not really. Much, anyway. (maybe I do need a good woman around to tell me when this idea or that one is sort of stupid...)

While that was curing I thought I would tackle the Fury emblems. That part didn't go so well, at first...

Before you pass your judgement upon such a failure, here's my thinking. It needed to be a very slight yet rounded curve vs. just bent in random ways. I didn't want part to be flush and parts to not be, so I invented an easy way to give it a constant curve.

Which actually was working as intended for much of the process. Just a little too much at the end... just when things were looking so up, too!

I did however, learn from doing it wrong the first time- sort of my motto in life I think - and you can indeed, when it's hot enough outside, slowly and methodically and surgically bend a metal emblem to exact specs, using a pair of pliers. Go figure, and easy and gentle way out. Who knew?

Although not as dramatic as previous process for bending metal, It worked and I will probably try and secure the emblem on one side this evening. Really wanting to see how it all looks, but wanted to let the paint cure at least 24 hours before I got this part started.

I'm digging the satin finish a lot and I'm glad I pushed through those last minute moments of doubt that were creeping in at the store. I also feel like I'm seeing the finish line up ahead, or that light at the end of the tunnel.

Just hoping it's not the light from an oncoming train...