johnsmachines

Today is the first day since I became sick that I have felt able to drive.  Until today I have been experiencing coughing paroxysms, severe headaches, dizzy episodes, even 2 episodes of hallucinations which were really weird.  Also requiring pain killers regularly.

My GP thinks that I have had influenza A, despite vaccination earlier in the year.  Certainly the nastiest bug which I have encountered in many years.

But as today warmed up, and I had not required any analgesics, and the coughing was settling, I decided to visit my workshop.   “Visit”, rather than operate machines.  I suspected that my mental faculties were not yet 100%.   It is a 20-25″ drive to my workshop, so off I went.

I was pleased to note that my neighbour had mowed the grass around my sheds.  It had become quite thick and high, and with the warmer spring weather today, I was not looking forward to walking through the thigh high vegetation which could conceal nasty poisonous fauna.  The neighbour has long term loan of my tractor and slasher, and the quid pro quo is that I get my grass mowed whenever required.

So what to do, not requiring turning on potentially dangerous machines?  I decided to look at the Trevithick dredger engine.  It has been waiting for some painting.  That would not be too arduous or too dangerous!

The engine end of the boiler was waiting for some flat black paint.  So I removed some appendages, filed and wire brushed the surfaces, and washed them down with mineral turps.  Found the paint, stirred it thoroughly, and carefully applied it with some small, new brushes.

The engine end of the machine, with one coat of the flat black applied.  Hmm…. I don’t remember it going streaky like that before…..   Maybe the second coat will look better.

I used the paint to touch up some other areas also.

Then as I was cleaning up, before going home I took another look at the paint can.

O shit!  I had used the wrong paint can!

I should have used the “Pot Belly Black”.  Somehow, I picked up the other one.  The “Rust Guard Epoxy Enamel” is good paint, but it might not tolerate the surface temperatures of the boiler.   And an etch primer is recommended for it, which would explain my application problem.

So what to do?   I know that most of you will be screaming at the screen, to strip off the epoxy paint and start again.  But, for better or for worse I have decided to apply another coat of epoxy tomorrow and see if the appearance improves.  I expect that it will.  Then a trial firing in a few days will demonstrate whether the epoxy will cope with the temperatures.  If it copes…. fine.  It is well away from the furnace.   If not, then a very time consuming strip job and repainting will be in order.

It seems that my mentation has not fully recovered.