Custom paint job, saved from the trash heap
So yesterday during my class I accidentally knocked over and pulled a bit on the head unit to my computer speaker system. I realized shortly after that that I had no sound. Well obviously I need sound to take a class so I jump under the desk and start scrambling to see if I pulled something loose. Power? Check. Audio cable? Check. WTF, the power light on the unit was still dark. Well I had no time to f with it so I quickly ripped out the speakers we have in the exercise room and hooked them up.
On a break I decided to rip apart the head unit and see if there was anything loose that I could maybe fix. I take it completely apart to the point where the circuit board is hanging out. I apply power again and still see nothing. Nothing looked loose, nothing looked wrong. WTF? Well I was pissed that it would mysteriously die. I angrily ripped the system off my desk and unraveled the mess of cords. I threw the equipment on the floor, figuring it would wind up going to the electronics recycling dump.
Well later on for some reason I thought I would f with it one more time. As I was fiddling with the head unit I noticed the power lied flickered for a second and then turned off. Again I am diddling with the cords trying to bring it back to life with no luck. Then it hits me. I PRESS on the led which also doubles as the on and off switch. Bingo, it lights up, everything is fine. Evidently when I set up the system a year or two ago I turned on the head unit and since then forgot that the led doubled as the power switch. When I knocked it over the first time it must of simply bumped the switch off. I felt both relieved and stupid at the same time.
So after class I decided I was going to whip out the white paint can and paint the drip rail on the van. The drip rail had a ton of very rusty spots on it. Up to this point I had stripped the rust off with a drill attachment and then treated the areas with rust converter that supposedly stops the rust chemical process as well as creating a primer like black surface.
I figured the weather was good for it, the sun was out and we have not had any appreciable rain for at least two weeks. I grabbed some of the left over masking tape from the dining room painting project and went to work. Taping it wasn’t too tough and even if it wasn’t perfect no one would notice or care, it’s a 16 year old party van. The paint I used supposedly also had some sort of rust inhibiting properties. The paint went on easily. I couple times I was a bit off in my aim and had some over spray, like on the windshield but for the most part it wasn’t bad. It was quite breezy outside. Several times I found myself downwind and as a result inhaled a bunch of fumes that gave me a headache later.
As I was moving around the van I noticed the skies were starting to look a bit ominous off in the distance. No worries, it has looked like that the past several days and we got nothing. Once I put two coats on the drip rail and thought it looked half decent I decided to do some impromptu other spots like a couple rusty spots on the passenger side where the old man that owned the van before me drug it along a post at a drive up window. I even quickly taped off the wheel well skirt to apply some paint to the area that was bare fiberglass. A few spots down low I didn’t even bother to mask, just shoot and spray, f it.
I pulled all the tape and admired my handy work. For an hours labor and $30 in materials it looked good to me, certainly much better than it did. The only thing that I need to do is use some fine sand paper to blend in some of the spots I hit on the body of the van as well as remove some shit that dripped down from the rust converter goop. As the last bit of tape was removed the sky was looking even more unfriendly. Of course as I could have predicted, we got a downpour. However it was about an hour after I had finished and the paint appeared to have enough of a skin on it to hold up, thankfully.
This project took me back 25 years when I painted not one but TWO cars completely with spray paint. One was an old shitty Chevette that I painted red. I can’t remember how we got the car all I remember is it never made it on to the road because it had major problems that prevented the car from passing state inspection.
The other car was Missy’s Vega. I went all out on her car. It was painted a deep blue with white racing stripes. I pulled off the trim and painted it all black. At the time, I thought I did a bang up job considering it was done with spray paint. I had blue snot for days afterward. I hadn’t thought to wear any sort breathing protection, smart. Probably melted half of my brain cells.