This was meant to be a longer, more glorious post about the trials and tribulations of setting up the blasting process (and I’d planned a second post on Alaska’ Paul’s blasting). But, this evening my mother needed rescuing after her battery died, so I shall have to skip the day’s drama and Paul’s efforts in favor of a short summation: I ran through three different compressors (a portable pancake, a portable contractor, and finally the 26 gallon wheeled Husky) before getting one that would work. Of course, the Husky had to be repaired, which further delayed work on Rusty.

Once the compressor started pumping, I started blasting. After considering various options, I went with fine coal material made by Black Diamond designed for blasting.

I tackled the headlight buckets first. The photo below shows one side blasted and the other not.

I was able to prep a number of parts, but forgot to get a photo of them lined up on my work table. I’m bringing them back to Pasco with me today to paint them.

One reason I need to return home is so Ann can return to our bedroom …. she had a freaky experience at 2AM a few nights ago. Our dog Zollie woke her up, growing at something. He never growls at night. She said he was looking all over as he growled. Once she calmed him down, the Amazon Echo on her side table unexpectedly announced “that’s not a very nice thing to say”. Knowing she hadn’t said anything, she used her Amazon Echo app to determine what the Echo had heard. When she brought it up the echo claimed to have heard the word “die”. As you might imagine, that was enough for her. She went downstairs and slept on the couch. She hasn’t slept in the bedroom since.

One last thing I did yesterday was to spend a little time straightening the rear quarter panels. Plenty of work left, but using some clamps and flat metal I was able to make them look a little better. Here’s the passenger side.

Plenty of work left …

I made it across the mountains on Monday, now that the snow and ice has let up temporarily. And, that reminds me. We traded in Henry, our red 2012 Laredo Grand Cherokee, for a slightly used blue 2016 Limited Grand Cherokee a few weeks ago.

Henry was incredibly dependable over the course of 100,000 miles, but he was due some maintenance and new tires. Once we considered those costs along with the equity, we decided to get something newer that had the upgrades Ann wanted (such as heated seats). Best of all, our payments stayed the same. We still don’t have a name for him yet:

And now for a ramond photo. When Ann and I were last in Ellensburg, Washington, eating lunch, I ran across these urinals in the men’s room. I hadn’t seen kegs used that way, but maybe I don’t get out enough ??…

Yesterday (Tuesday), I spent the afternoon working on Rusty, triaging next steps (what needs what work done and fix-or-buy assessments). I’m also choosing some projects to bring back to Pasco. One thing I did was remove the bumpers and clean them up (not perfect, but good enough for the moment).

Continue reading →