Humid showers

I forgot what it is like down here to take a shower, dry off and not ever get completely dry. The humidity here is a major factor. It is 65 in the morning, which is nice, but the humidity makes it feel as if it is 80 or so. Yuck, I wanna go home!

Pigs

Spent 3 days on the lease hunting for deer and pigs. Deer was OK, lots of sitting, but pigs were fun. We would walk about in the night and call them with a distress call. We stirred up a real big one that was quite mad with us. Kind of a weird feeling to be walking throughout the brush in the middle of the night and come upon a hog hole, full of mud and hear them circling you. We shot one pig and it was strange to have the other pigs surround it and protect it. We were unable to get to the pig we shot, what with the others protecting it. All and all it was fun hanging out with some dusty Mexicans.


A quick picture of me unloading a 35 round clip in the semi auto SKS assault rifle.

Hunting

Woke up this morning and the Texans asked me if I wanted to go to the 'deer lease". Let's go, I havn't shot a deer in a number of years. Should be interesting.

I am having trouble getting my pics to move to the computer down here. I will do what I can, if not when I get back.


See 'yall

Merry Christmas

Call me old school, but I still celebrate Christmas and ssssay Merry Christmas. I know that is not very PC, but I am not the most PC guy.

I am here in Texas, the weather is 75 and sunny. Now that's Christmas weather. The company is nice, things seem to be going well. I drank a bit much on Christmas Eve, but that was to be expected. Who bought the Jaeger any way?

Soon as can get this computer to read my photo card, I will toss up some pictures of the goings on here. Until than, take care....

Micro grinding

Time for some micro grinding. TK laid the welds on extra beefy for my gusset piece, so I am having to now shape them into something beautiful. It is tedious, but like the rest of it, worth it. Now if I only had two batteries for that dremel.

Estimates

I am beginning to think that with the conditions in my shop, I will not be able to paint this myself. I will not be happy with the job when it is done and will have wasted hours and dollars trying to get there. I am going to call around for estimates in 4 minutes.

End of week 7

Weeks are just ticking by. I have a goal set, the Portland addition of the Easy-riders show is April 1st. The bike must 110% be finished by than, I plan on riding it to the show! I don't think it is going to be a problem.

McD was right, hour upon hour of applying mud and sanding it, applying more mud, sanding it, and than spraying it with the high build, and sanding it is yielding a NEAR flawless piece. There is still some orange peel in the primer, but it is slowly coming out mm by mm with some good old wet sanding. I don't mind the wet sanding, the paper flows nicely over the wet surface, but man does it make a mess.

I unfortunately didn't grab a picture of the gas cap before I started working with it. But when they weld in the fuel bung, there is almost a 3/8 inch trough around the hole that is full of weld and air. In order for the 'hidden gas cap' to disappear, you have to build up the surrounding area with mud and primer. As you can see in the picture, it is impossible to see any weld or trough at all. I am VERY pleased with that.

Back to sanding...........

Night out on the town

Boyz night out last night, my last one with the Oregon crew for the year. It was a blast! We hit one of our favorite haunts for some cold reeb (that's beer spelled backwards) and billiards. Well like most nights at the billiards tables, it finally came around, the old 'Let's hit the strip club!' Off we went. We entered the dark building, strobe lights flashing and big bass rhythms shaking the walls with no windows. We each grabbed a cold one from the cutie at the bar and grabbed a seat on the rack. The girl swaggered over our way, she could probably smell our fresh money already. My buddy Dave took out a five dollar bill, showed it to us and winked. He licked the bill and stuck it to the dancers right butt cheek. She smiled and shook her groove thing for him. Carey said 'oh yeah' and pulled out a twenty dollar bill. Waved it in the air like it was a hanky, and the girl quickly made her way over to him. He dipped it in his reeb and stuck it the dancers left butt cheek. She laughed aloud and stepped up on the rack, giving him quite the show for his twenty bucks. I shook my head and laughed. As she was finishing with Carey, Juan flipped us the bird and pulled out a FIFTY dollar bill. He held it up for us to see and than for the chicky to see. Her face lit up like a Christmas tree. He licked the back of the bill and motioned for her to come over, she didn't hesitate. I was thinking man, this is getting a bit pricey, I should have got in on this when the bids were down under ten bucks! Where's he gonna stick that 50? Well to my surprise, she had him stick right next to the 20 on her left cheek. She really worked him over with the dancing. I mean wow! get a room. When she was done with him, his hair sticking in about 10 different directions, she walked back out to the pole. She looked over at me, kind of giving me the old head nod as to say 'how you gonna top this?' I looked at the money flitting with each shake of her butt. She walked over to me, and tilted my cap back so she could look at my eyes. I leaned over and fished my wallet out. I looked inside and found three one dollars bills and a ten. I was hoping to spend the ten on my reebs for the rest of the night. I looked up at her, she had her breast in her hand and she said in a mousy little voice 'hi...' Ahhhhhhhhhhhh, crap, this is too rich for my blood, than it hit me. I took out my ATM card, swiped it down her butt crack, took the 75 bucks off her ass and excused myself.

Good night boys, see you after the new year.

TK weld!

I made a custom part for the bike last night. Cut and ground the steel to be exactly what I wanted. I had to do it twice because the first piece was sub par. I loaded the frame up and went over to TK's this morning. He was gracious enough to weld on the piece for me. He did a bang up job, and I now need to do some delicate grinding to get it finished. I will get a pic of the finished piece when it is ready.

TK getting his weld on!

Ummmm, hold on!

I am in a waiting pattern right now. I have to spray the polyester on the tins before I can paint and I can't get to the shop until Friday. I can't send the frame to powder until I get my parts from the OKC kingpin, cuz the frame has to be drilled and tapped for them. I can't paint until those parts are here cuz I still have to cut the fender. Waiting game................

End of week 6

The body work is done!!!!!!!!!

I am going to get some 3M 05808 sprayable polyester and hit the tins with it in the next two weeks. Than I will see what other sanding needs to be done and than it is time to paint. Things are starting to get to a fun point again.

Once I get the parts from OK, I can mount them and cut the rear fender. After that, and probably after the first of the year, the frame will go to powder coat and get powdered *****. I plan on spending the majority of my free time in January doing the final assembly.
I take me Basic Rider Training course at the end of the month, and than it is ride ride ride (around the neighborhood) until I am ready to drive this thing to work and show all the pissers who didn't think I could do it that I could.

I assembled the control housings today and got them ready for the arrival of my handlebars..........pictures are rare these days as not much is changing on the appearance of the machine. Soon there will be hordes of pictures!

Prime time

I spent the day sand prepping the tins and finishing the body work. I went and bought some "high build primer" and sprayed all the tins but the rear fender as I am not done modifying it. The "high build" primer was not-so-high-build primer. It just didn't do what I wanted it to do. I am going to buy some of the professional stuff this weekend and do it again. I am also going to construct a 'paint booth'. I don't want to deal with the over spray that is going to happen when that compressor gets going.

click to enlarge


The tank, body worked and primed.


Front fender and oil tank, primed

And no that is not the color of the bike, merely the primer.

I have some pin holes I have to fill and SAND AGAIN (that is becoming a theme here I think!) and than the different primer will go on, and more sanding.
Beginning to realize why a paint job cost so much.

Week 6?

I have lost track of how long I have had this bike.

Today is a day off, I am sitting here wishing I had gone fishing. The sun is shining, no rain, windy and cold, what could be better.

Body work is begin to both bore me and annoy me, it doesn't seem like I am getting anywhere.

For the first time since I got the bike or should I say parts, I have a clear vision as to where I am going with it. I have commissioned a fabricator in Oklahoma to make me three parts that are going to set this Venom apart from the others. I have the color scheme planned out, and I am moving towards it.

I think I will go buy my paint today.

Body work Bonanza

The body work continues. I am no body work guy, and this is a lot of work. I wish I had a master over here giving me pointers. It seems easy, but when you think you have it absolutely perfect, you take a real close look and you find these little dimples in the filler. I have been told that filler primer will take care of a few of those, so I am going to get some of that this week and check it out.


On the rear fender the only body work that needed to be done was hiding the welds. These guys down at BBC do fantastic welds, but I am going to hide them for the final project, at least on the tins.



After a few sticky fingers and some sanding, they end up like this.

I am virtually done with the body work, I am at the limits of my body working knowledge. I am going to fix a couple of spots and re-sand, and than I hope to get that filler primer on there, maybe next week.

There is true artistry in this process, and I tip my hat to the true artists of the business.

Week five!

So I have had the "parts" for about 5 weeks now. I have completely torn down the bike and am currently working on bondo bronchitis, I mean body work. The tank is really nice quality, but I think where they weld the two halves together there are some high spots. So I covered the tank in plastic filler, and began sanding. Also, where the fuel filler is welded to the tank needed to be worked up so it blends with the rest of the tank. Things are coming along nicely, my entire garage, EVERYTHING, is covered in a fine layer of pink dust. Lots of cleaning to be done when this over. I would like to get this thing to the powder coater before Christmas, so I need to get a custom part cut and welded on soon.


Click the pic to enlarge a photo of the tank and it's current status of body work 'mess'.



And finally an updated picture of the current status of the bike. Seems like I have been here before.