Wow, another year gone. My, doesn't time fly? I hope you have all had a wonderful Christmas and New Year. I haven't had much time off as our 'Xmas' isn't for another two and a half weeks or so. In many ways I miss living in the west and having the old 'traditional' Xmas with overcooked turkey, familial fisticuffs, stupid jumpers and badly knitted socks from Aunt Maud. Can't say I miss the sprouts though....
My only regret was not being able to lay my hands on Heston Blumenthal's legendary candied orange Christmas pudding but fuck it, I'm sure some enterprising sort will have saved a piece and will eventually whack it onto Ebay with the obligatory 100% markup and will no doubt also mark it as 'used'.
Well, we have had a monstrously harsh winter here. Global warming? What fucking global warming? Bollocks. I don't even think the Australian floods were a natural disaster and more of a mass bursting into tears after losing the Ashes. Three weeks the Aussies were praying for rain and when it finally does come...But seriously, I sympathise for those that have died. Knowing that their last thought was that Australia was shit at cricket couldn't have been nice.
Speaking of weather, the snow has been the bane of my life these past few months. The reason for my lack of activity in these parts is that my family business has been drafted in to help build a high speed rail link. Actually, parts for equipment for one, as that must sound horribly self-important and not strictly accurate. With 10 feet snow drifts and Siberian frigidity, work has been tough but since here in China we are made of sterner stuff than some of you pansies, we press on. The other issue that this coldness has had is that it has been playing merry fucking hell with my paint attempts. I've had three professional paint sprayers fuck off in frustration (and the fact I threatened to nail their hands to the wall might have had something to do with it, but I like to think it was the job rather than me that caused them to bug out). This leaves muggins here to waste valuable paint on trying to manually paint these sonics, a job that really should be done by robot. It is a 20 stage process that can fuck up due to the most arbitrary of reasons. I need three straight days to go through the process and because of my other commitments, it's not something I could easily spare. The low temperatures and humidity also do not help. In many ways, transmuting lead to gold is probably easier. But this weekend, I nailed it with the help of an industrial humidifier and a heater. Here then, are the results:
Primed and coated with undercoat (this is the colour of the crackle):
After being painted with the colour coat and baked prior to sealing (note failure rate):
Rejects go into bin for solvent bath and repainting:
The final result of a perfect one prior to sealing:
The buttons and slider plates:
Me looking a bit pissed off. Get out of my workshop!!!!!
More updates soon, but get your cash ready as I hope to have these babies ready before Chinese New Year.
