#10 - Now you see it -Now you don't!!!

Well its been a while since I have graced the world wide web. But I haven't forgot you ole friend. Life just moves on, people get older, some get nicer, some get bitchier and some just remain the same. You just have to know your friends and what to expect from them and not ask more than you know than can give back, if you do it is your own fault to have expected more. Thants my Confucius for the day.
In other news I have made some progress on the ole girl. I have managed to get the inside complelty stripped out, heater, steering wheel, brake and clutch assembly, instrument panels and doors and windows and a whole lot more. The cab came off with not too much problem a few weeks ago. Since then I have been removing anything left on the frame until she was bare. It included pulling the rusted hunk of a engine using the tractor, not pretty but it worked. I have also been talking to a retired guy in Brenham that restores old International transmissions. I am going to swap the 3 speed on the tree that came with the new motor for re-building the old one.
This morning ' I had the day off' took it to the sandblaster and had it stripped to bare metal. Yes even the area I had already finished and painted. During the last few months I have been talking and researching the prep and paint with a local company in Clute. Buds used to be Thelma's Paint in freeport and he has been a life saver. He wasn't real enthused about the way I was priming and painting everything. It seems that people have different opinions, imagine that:) Well my friend who has done a bunch of these sucks, his opinion sucks. That is my opinion, buts its just an opinion. Well in the meantime I have not been taking anyone's work as gospel and have done my own research. Bud convinced me to do all the body and paint work myself and said I could handle it. So today I had the whole frame sandblasted, which saved me two weeks of grinding and only cost 50 bucks. I have found an old friend that has a large company that does that kind of thing commercially and will let me use his good equitment, more on that later. Anyway he blasted the frame by 10:00 this morning. Upon inspection I found a couple of hairline cracks in a some of the crossmembers so I got those stick welded up.
The rest of the day I was able to get it hung up with baling wire from the rafters of the barn. Using Buds advice and buying everyting from him, paint, sprayer, filtration equiptment... I sprayed on two coats of 2-part epoxy urethane primer and 3 coats of acrylic urethane paint. The frame is complete and looks great.
Now I can actually start putting the things I have finished back on, yeah baby 'whose your daddy'.