Wednesday 28 February 2018

Ice Age Zero

Holy cow, it's cold and just when I wanted to spray paint, an activity that requires reasonable temperatures!

Getting bored of waiting, I bought my paints and wheelarches into the house and spray painted in my study. I didn't quite stink out the whole house but the wife had a good moan.

 I had put some pinstripe vinyl sticker on one of the arches but I then tried to spray lacquer over it and the lacquer seemed to have an effect of shrinking the pinstripe, so much so that it lifted off the surface of the arch. So I had to pull it off, which left a gluey residue behind, ruining the nice finish and forcing me to re-sand the arch which I did badly (you following this?). Despite several coats of paint, I haven't fully hidden the scratches, so on close inspection, it doesn't look great:


This is with the lacquer on, so not sure whether to put the pinstripe on again - it did look good.

 My door frames have been welded up (many thanks Bob) and look great. I've approached a couple of local companies about sewing the material over the frame; one never called back and the other sounded very dubious and obviously had no idea what a kit car is. So, I'm going to try do this myself (gawd help us) - I've ordered a cheap sewing machine which may not be up to the job but it was only £25, so not the end of the world if it doesn't work out and I have started drawing up some vague plans - we shall see.

 Despite the cold this week, I drove into work a couple of times (too icy for my motorbike and I hate trains). I imagine I got a few strange looks but it was no colder than my motorbike and quite fun in the snow:


Sunday 18 February 2018

Zedster's new clothes

With the weather being so cold, I haven't been able to get the painting of the wheelarches done. I was finally at home during the day this weekend and finished several coats of black on the one arch - it looks brilliant:


I initially only did the repaired arch, just in case the paint looked rubbish and i would have to resort to just buying a new arch to match the other side. Fortunately, I think it looks great, so I've primed the other side as well - no going back now. I've also put a thin silver pinstripe on the black arch - looks excellent but I'll save the pictures for when they're on.

Between coats of paint, i gave the car a wash, polish and applied the new sticker i got a few weeks ago:



Maybe it's just me but i flipping love it - I've totally fluked the colour and size and I just think it looks great.

My indicators went on the blink (strictly, that's exactly what they didn't do). After wasting some time on checking the bulb and wiring, turned out to be the indicator relay - the same brand (HC-Cargo) as my alternator that died a few months ago! Replaced it with a new one (unbranded)...

Wednesday 7 February 2018

The Old Grey Wheelarch Test

So with the arch damage repaired, time to try out the wrap...

... And let's gloss over that because it was a disaster! I thought the arch, being a small area, would be easy to do but it actually has a lot of compound curves and these are very difficult to wrap. I did a pretty decent job of the nice, flat areas but I just couldn't get the wrinkles out of the side pieces, despite liberal use of heat and repeated removal and application.

Got a flat area? Wrapping is great but any curves involved, don't bother.

So, back to basics - spray paint. I'm not sure why I didn't think of this before as it's going well so far. Because of the cold weather, I've only managed the primer on the one arch (the instructions say not to spray in cold weather) but it actually looks quite good just in battleship grey:


Despite the cold weather, I've commuted in Zedster every day this week so far and that has been partly possible because even my prototype door is very good at keeping the wind (and hence cold) out:



However, what it has also shown me is that the plastic frame is just too flexible and flaps about too much. The thicker vinyl I will eventually cover it in would help but not enough, I don't think.

So, a metal frame it is - I've ordered the pieces (the company I've ordered from will cut it to the sizes I want) and Bob from the RHOCAR forum has kindly offered to weld it up for me (he did my VIN plate). At least the plastic frame is a useful template.

Thursday 1 February 2018

Show me the money!

OK, this is a gratuitous post to get me a free car badge :-)

I've been trying to use basic 3D software to do a car badge for ages but I just can't do a decent job. Much surfing didn't help find me any off-the-shelf badges that did what I wanted.

I decided a sticker would have to do (at least for now), so, following a link from Richard's blog, I found these people. I have honestly tried a few other similar companies but this was the only one who allowed me to just design and order 1 sticker - all the others had minimum order amounts. Their design page is also very easy to use - highly recommended.

I won't ruin the surprise yet - I'll show you the complete result when it arrives.
And here it is!

Blatant money-grabbing over - although I was honestly just going to pay for the badge (£12) until I saw their offer on the payments page of a free purchase if I blogged - clever marketing.