Interlude



Blood, Sweat, and Emery Cloth.

The Z250 hasn't made a lot of progress, but that's not to say I haven't done a lot of work on it. I'm not sure if I elucidated on the reasoning behind brush painting the frame? Buying the machinery enamel, a litre of red oxide primer, two brushes, and a litre of white spirit cost something on the order of twenty of our good English Pounds, a little under if I recall correctly. At this point I could have got the frame blasted and started painting it, but I chose to strip the frame by hand to keep expenditure down.



Bottoms up! Literally.

While it certainly did that, it also took up a lot of time, probably three days on the frame alone, and most of another day on the swinging arm and assorted brackets. If your personal situation leaves you with more free time than free money, it's an option worth considering, but it requires a degree of patience as well. Going over the entire frame and making sure that all the grease, oil, rust, and old paint are removed is incredibly tedious, but perfectly doable. And then there's the swinging arm, engine mounting brackets, and rear brake torque arm to do as well.

On the flip side...

Avoiding the temptation to get the brush in your hand and start splashing paint around until the preparation is complete is probably as important as having the patience, or at least being sufficiently obsessive, to remove all the old crud from the frame. When I eventually do start painting the frame, I usually flip it upside down for the first coat of primer. I've found that when you apply paint to frame with a brush, there's a tendency for the bottom of horizontal frame members to either remain unpainted, or play host to large and unsightly runs in the paint. By applying the first coat with the frame upside down I can get a good coat of primer on the parts that are going to be difficult to see with the frame the right way up.  With the frame flipped over and lightly scuffed off for the second coat, it's easy to see where there wasn't a lot of coverage.

I think it's had three coats of primer now, and unless I rub through it in a lot of places when I wet flat it, that ought to do, so with a little luck it ought to be in colour by the end of next week...