Paint done, mostly

Last post I was talking about the painting i was doing. Fast forward seven and a half weeks and the last bit of paint has finally gone on, mostly. There is one speaker box that’s going to need a lot more paint, but the rest are now done. Just have to wait for it all to dry.

There were a number if things that got in the way of the final spray. Back in mid May was Good Beer Week. That was nine days of beery goodness. Even went up to Ballarat for the first weekend.

On top of that there has been a lot of home brew activity. A number of brews have been done. A new name and with it’s own domain name for the blog! That’s taken up a lot of weekend time.

The weather had been crap. Really need it to be dry outside when setting up, painting, and packing up.

Computer died. Not fun at all. Tested the hardware and thought it was the hard drive. Bought a new one, no luck. Tested a whole lot of combinations, RAM, other hard drives, and DVD players seamed fine. Thought it was the motherboard, CPU or power supply. Ended up buying all three (plus new case as I couldn’t get a PSU by itself). Plugged everything in and… same issue.
In hindsight I should of tested the sound card and graphics card, and different RAM combinations. It turned out to be the RAM. So now my brand new computer has less RAM than my old computer!
Anyway, it’s finally working. Sound now playing and just a few more driver updates before I instal the big programs.

Most recently I’ve been busy with the Melbourne International Animation Festival at Australian Centre for the Moving Image in Federation Square in the city. Try saying that quick three times! Been a hoot. This year they’ve put on a conference, RENDER. That was really good for me and I absolutely have the animation bug again.
Like last year, I’m taking the week off work. Monday was house stuff with the front door being fixed. Yesterday was getting tyre car serviced and looking after a sick wife.
And today was painting day!

I’m hopping paint will be dry tomorrow. But more likely to be two plus says given some of the cold weather we’re having.

Speakers get paint, and a bit on me

Following on from my last post, work on the speakers are going well.

Some more putty was required on one before final sanding. Plus the sub-woofer needed a sand back as well. Then onto the painting.

Finished off an old can of black paint last Saturday. Had another one and though that would last. Yesterday got most of one speaker done before that can ran out too. Time to bust out the paint gun.

I bought the paint gun two or three years back. Worked well but a bit of a hassle for a small job. Finding it was okay, finding the instructions was another matter. After a while finally dug it out and worked out what needed to happen.

Paint was poured in, thinned out, tested and ready to go. A couple seals had crumbled, but they where only for the air, and wasn’t too worried. Overall things went well. Good coat of pain on and a couple speakers will be dry and ready to go next weekend. Sub-woofer need another coat but that should be a quick job on Saturday.

Cleaning up is a bitch. Oh how I forgot about the… things. Have to pull the gun apart get all the little parts out and was in paint thinner  And you get paint everywhere if not careful. Next weekend will be better. I remember all the tricks, and only a little bit more to go.

Photos will be up once things dry. Pretty excited.

Pet projects, big and small

I’ve always had a pet project on the go. Normally a few. And there’s always a big one. Recently I’ve been trying to close off a few projects. Things that have been on the sideline for years.

Last weekend I got rid of a whole stack of second hand wood. Part of it was going to be made into a TV / entertainment stand. Started that back in 2007-8. Never really got past cutting the wood up into rough shapes. Realised a month ago that there was never going to be a need.

Then take today. It’s ANZAC day, a public holiday, and didn’t have a lot of plans. Did a few things around the house. Put a whole pile of books on ebay. And looked in the shed. Found the wood for the coffee table (project since late 2008), did some sanding on that. Also spotted the speaker boxes.

Now I’ve been wanting to build these speaker boxes for years. Since about 2007. The main boxes have been put together. They just need the outside ‘cleaned’ and painted. I realised I’ve just been sanding, and puttying, and sanding, and putting, and so on for ages. They’re probably never going to be perfect.

Today I made the decision that close enough is good enough. At least they’ll be done. So, with that I did one final sand back on one that needs a paint job (call it #2). And puttied up one that had taken a few dints, was done a while back but got knocked over and chipped (call it #1). There’s also one that was designed for two speakers/woofers at the fount (call it #3). This is ready for paint, but I’m not sure I even need it any more.

So this weekend sand back #1, get some undercoat on #2 and work out if I really need #3 at all. It really was about time to sort that out. Feeling better now.

Blogs and sites, and all that jazz

So a quick into. I’ve wanted to do a blog, well really I just wanted to document some things I’ve been doing. And I’ve wanted to do this for a while. Never got around to it.

A friend invited me to help on his. And Word Press wanted me to set my own up. So here we are. Should be fun.