"Fettucini alfredo is macaroni & cheese for adults." - Mitch Hedberg

L'esprit de l'escalier - literally, the spirit of the stairs. It's a French expression that describes the situation when you think of the perfect retort too late. As in, you're walking up the stairs and it comes to you. Dope slap. "I should'a said...."

Sometimes, though, it's not a retort, but a salient point that would have helped the discussion advance in a substantive direction. Either way it's frustrating!

We hit 108 this afternoon. I had to go down to ADCO, the place where I took the classes and bought my supplies, to ask some questions (see below). This is the time of year that makes driving the Falcon on trips like that less than fun. I put AC in it, but really don't like using it. That little straight six feels the extra load, the temp gauge shows the effects, and at idle both of those are exacerbated. So I turn on the AC full bore when I'm on the freeway or driving a stretch of road and then turn it off when I come to a stop light. As soon as the light goes green and I'm up to speed the AC comes back on.
The crazy thing: when the Falcon is moving I get air moving through the cabin. OK, it's like standing in front of a giant hair dryer, but it's moving air. If I use the AC it's turned off when I'm not moving. So is it really all that helpful to have AC when it's only used while I'm moving down the road and off every time I stop?

I'm anxious. Not eager, anxious.
Tomorrow I'm starting the paint process on the truck and I'm in way over my head. I took those classes too long ago and have forgotten things. I am also finding out how much we weren't told - the reason I went down to ADCO this afternoon to ask questions. In the process of talking with the guy he mentioned things I didn't even know enough to ask. Which makes me wonder how many other things like that there are. Either way, I'm jumping in the deep end tomorrow morning as soon as the sun is up (5:30 a.m.).

I was out there this morning at that hour prepping things. First step: mop the garage floor and create a poor man's paint booth. Plastic on the walls and masking paper on the floor. That was the easy part.

Next I cleaned all the parts that get sprayed. Blow them off with the compressor and air nozzle, then wipe them down with a special de-greaser that gets off oils from your hands as well as any remaining dust from sanding. I did that in the driveway and brought the parts into the garage as I cleaned them. The plan is to start painting from the front of the garage to the back, taking parts out onto the driveway as they get done. I'll save the cab and bed for last. To the left of this pic are the one good door, the hood, and the tailgate. I hope to have it all done by 9:00 because by then we're hitting 90 degrees, too hot for good spraying.

Both sides get shot with a 3-part epoxy sealer that gets mixed a very precise one-to-one-to-one. Every surface of every part. This stuff has a "pot life" of 30 minutes, which means after that it starts to get hard and will gum up the gun. So the trick is to mix no more than you can shoot in 20 minutes, then clean the gun and mix more. No pressure.

This is the gun. I had said earlier that it was LVLP, but it is, in fact, an HVLP - high volume, low pressure. Little overspray but good coverage. There are four adjustments on the gun and the trick is to get the balance between them correct. How much air? How much epoxy coating? What spray pattern? How much pressure for the mixture?

Saturday morning I do it all again, this time with 3-5 coats of a 2-part filler layer designed to be sanded to a very smooth, level surface. That is, it fills up any small holes and deviations. It has a pot life of 25 minutes, but in the heat it gets shortened to as little as 15. They told me horror stories about guys who had guns lock up in hot weather as the spray hardened to a cement-like substance inside this gun with its very, very small orifices. The good news: only surfaces that get seen are sprayed with this pricey stuff. So I skip places like the floor of the truck, door jambs, the firewall, and the like. If it's not going to get finish sanded it doesn't get this layer.

Yeah, finish sanded. This fill coat gets 100 grit, followed by 150, then 180, then 220. More fun with a sanding block, with four more layers to go and the same kind of progressive sanding between each of them. This is why it costs between $15,000 and $20,000 to get a vehicle taken down to bare metal and then painted. I keep telling myself, "You're saving so much money!"

So if you hear screaming in the wee hours tomorrow morning, or Saturday morning, you'll know I screwed something up. But the worst that can happen? I sand down my mess to bare metal and start over.
But I'd really rather not.