Patina is overrated

Don’t for a minute assume I’m comparing myself to Vinnie. For a starter, I have both my ears. But the sentiment behind the quote is still valid.

When I picked up the ugly duckling a while back it had a rather large dent in the tank along with various other battle scars. I had never really done any body work/painting and so I was tempted to just call it ‘patina’ and forget about it. But then there was this other voice, the perfectionist me, telling me to try to fix it. What finally made me decide to go for it was the acquisition of a couple more tanks, backups if I really messed it up.

So I jumped in with both feet. The first job was to build a stand to hold the tank when I was working on it. This turned out to be a great move as it made the job much, much easier.



With the tank secured in place I was ready to try my hand at body work. A body-shop experienced friend offered some guidance and before I knew it I was welding a bolt on the tank, with some trepidation, to pull the dent out. And it worked like a charm, rewarding me with a very satisfying ‘pop’ as the metal returned near to its original shape.

 

I ground the bolt off and then it was on to the filler. After sanding much of the tank back to bare metal the Bondo went on, smoothing out the ripples. Apply Bondo, let cure, sand, repeat several times. Eventually it not only looked smooth but more importantly it felt smooth.



The first indication whether the prep work was (or wasn’t) any good came once I applied the primer. Sure enough a coat of paint highlighted a few rough spots so it was back to the filler and more sanding and then primer again. Eventually I was happy.

But now, what colour to paint it? Didn’t want black. Didn’t want the original rusty red. Didn’t want another bright red like the Harley. So it was off to Canadian Tire where I spent an inordinate amount of time standing in front of the rack of colour-matched paints, trying to make a choice. In fact I think it took me longer to decide on a colour than it took me to decide to buy our last house. But that’s just the way it goes sometimes.

The voice isn’t silenced yet, but it’s getting there as I’m quite pleased with progress to date. Now you’ll just have to wait for the reveal.