Chester the Rooster - Pt 1 - Its the small things

I pulled off the cover hoping to start the painting on Chester. I started running a tack cloth over the surface to remove any sawdust and any other debris. I was going down the back leg when I found a large nick in the wood. That has to be fixed! So out comes the filler and then it needs to be sanded and then I have decided that he needs one more coat of primer. So a slight delay before the real painting begins.

Chester will be painted in a more or less traditional carousel methods. After the last coat of primer has dried (and probably another light sanding) the body colors will be applied using alkyd enamel paints. These are oil based enamels which will dry a lot slower than the newer water based enamels although they are becoming harder to find these days. Highlights, shadows and blending will be done with artist oils. The artist oils will dry faster when combined with the alkyd enamels so it won't take months for Chester to finish drying. That will be followed up with 2-3 coats of a clear gloss.

Looks a little rough still, but another coat of primer followed by paint will hide a lot of flaws.

Sledgehammer XXXI - Next Color

I'm so much happier with this than the original brown base that I started with. I realize its going to end up in a WWII German camo scheme but I'm okay with that, it seems to work much better at least so far.

Cartoon Wednesday

Sledgehammer XXX - Reboot

So Chester really is at the top of the list, but I had started the reboot of the Sledgehammer before he was ready to go. Plus there is still some paint to buy for Chester. So he does remain the priority but I need to accumulate a few materials first.

I have not been very happy with the colors I selected for the Sledgehammer and the support vehicles. I decided to try something a bit different so I have started over on the Sledgehammer itself. First job was to re-prime it. So now its ready for some real color

Carousel Rooster to the top of the que

I have shown Chester a couple of times over the years on the blog. After everything that has been going on I realized that this is probably the most important thing that I need to finish. My dad carved this one at least 10 years ago and I have had it since 2016. My mom certainly isn't getting any younger and she may soon be the only one left from her generation. While she is in excellent health I need to get this one finished for her.

It has been moved into the house (no small chore either). We have opted to do the work in the living room. Probably not the best place for a studio but it will serve the purpose. I sanded down the primer for a good painting surface and I plan on starting to get paint on him this weekend. The goal is to definitely to have him done by Thanksgiving (which is really late this year). 

We are going to go for something like this one:

This fellow was wandering around on our visit to Hawaii last year.

I'm looking forward to painting this its so very different from what I usually work on.

Back from Life

Its been well over a month since my last post and for that I apologize. There has just been an awful lot going on and I either didn't have time or didn't have the energy to get on here and post. It certainly doesn't mean that nothing has happened though.

We are still dealing with the estate of my wife's father. One property left to sell and then we never have to deal with her nasty siblings again. I leave it at that but it certainly sucks the life out of you.

A major renovation project at our church that just seemed to soak up our time. Except for a couple of very minor dings that need to be fixed by the contractor that project too is finished.

Reaper Con 2019. I didn't take a single picture at Reaper Con this year. It was a terrific show and attendance jumped from just over a 1000 to just over 1500. Stressful for the staff to say the least because we really weren't prepared for that kind of jump. The vendors did very well, I didn't have a single complaint about the business and unlike prior years there was a pretty steady flow of people through the area all the time. Before we would have surges every couple of hours when classes finished up and the rest of the time would be very dead. Not the case this year, still had the surges but the vendors tended to stay pretty busy the whole time.

Reaper Con 2019 Painting Competition, we had 996 entries in the competition. Excellent stuff, head over to the ReaperCon.com website and check out the gallery for 2019. Judging didn't take quite as long as I anticipated. We just stepped in and did the work, five teams this year and we may try and add a sixth next year if the volume stays at this level. I didn't get the Sledgehammer diorama done, so I grabbed the shipping container with all the graffiti on it and entered that. It received a silver which is pretty much exactly what it deserved.

For the first time ever I was unable to finish the auction. It started half an hour later than normal and we have an earlier flight time than last year. As it was we barely made our flight. If you were there, I apologize for having to make a sudden rush out of there. New later start time and just a ton of stuff to dispose of made the timing tight. Will try and make a few adjustments there for next year.

I picked up a little loot this year mostly tools (There were some miniatures as well but they were in a different bag when I was taking pictures):

You can never have enough clamps! Two 90 degree corner claps, one splice clamp and four padded nosed alligator style clips. Not to mention plenty of sharp objects.

I also spent a lot of time thinking about the model railroads and trying to move forward with at least one of them. At this point there is room for the HO scale urban switching layout so that has provided quite a distraction with research and design.

And then there is this:
That is our brand spanking new Jeep Gladiator which we traded both of our Jeep Wrangler JKs to get. We were parked on the street visiting friends when a young driver came flying over the hill and smacked us. Hard enough to drive the Jeep forward 10' with the parking brake on.

The damage doesn't look that bad from here

Or from here

Those skid marks can't be good and I don't think the wheels should bend that way.

The vehicle that hit us, at least it wasn't a hit and run. That's a Lincoln MKX and the 17 year old walked away with just a couple of scratches.

The Gladiator is the brand new Jeep pickup, we picked it up at the beginning of June at the time of the accident, in July, it has 385 miles on it. Currently still in the shop and we aren't likely to see it until October or November. Parts are still not available for it, nor is pricing on those parts. They tried to get it on a frame jig to check it but the rear suspension was to bent up to get it on that machine. Even if they replace the frame it won't be enough to total the vehicle. 

As I said, there was a lot going (and more stuff that I didn't mention) but, hopefully, I can get back in the groove and post regularly again.