Black and Tan - Part 2

From Kevin......





In a previous post, I mentioned I was working on the Black and Tan bike project this past weekend.

Shortly after putting the first coat of tan paint over the primer coat on the front fender, I thought I had suddenly slipped into some weird "bizarro world" where paint dries instantaneously. I therefore made a conscious decision to pick up the wet fender and move it to a safe place!

Just like Joe Theismann braking his leg, it played over and over in my mind in painfully slow motion:

We see me put my gloved finger under the fender and lift it......

next we see the fender teeter-totter like a see-saw (or vice versa).......

then there is that brief moment of me wondering what I was planning to do next......

followed by my disbelief as the fender slips ever so slowly off my rubber glove.....

it flips on it's back (a deliberate act on it's part I might add) and falls an agonizing three feet to the floor......

There is silence. Leaves rustle in the wind. A dog barks in the distance.....

There comes a time in every man's life when he must step up and face undesired consequences of his actions. This was my moment, and how I dealt with it would speak volumes about who I am.

I threw the fender into the street as a bus was passing.

That that's not entirely true. I made it up. Sorry.

Actually the first thing I did was go into denial:
"The paint can't be that bad. A bit of dirt here, some cat hair there. A bit of saw dust.....a wood screw .....walnuts.....raisins....and colorful sprinkles."

Then came anger:
"NOOOOOO!" Birds flew away as church bells rang, and several old women fell to their knees in the middle of the street screaming, "Why God? Why? Why hath thou wrought such tragedy upon this kind, young, athletic man. A man whose only infraction was to believe that he could, perchance, paint a bicycle fender!!!"

Next, bargaining:
"Oh lord, please. If I can just save the primer coat beneath this paint, I promise not to sand this fender all the way down to bare metal and spray primer coat on it again and then sand that and then spray more tan paint over that EVER AGAIN! Thank you in advance."

Followed by depression:
"Hmm. This kinda sucks."

Finally, acceptance:
"GREAT! Now I'm working backwards! I'm stripping fresh paint and primer off of this stupid fender. What a mess. OH! And NOW I'm actually out of tan paint. That's just great! Maybe I should just start stripping paint off all my other bikes.......or the car, huh? Maybe when I paint our house I can then remove all the fresh paint off that as well."

Once over my desire to live in a paint free world, I went inside and showed Stace the fender.

"I'm sorry I let you down", I said.

She consoled me. "It's fine, you'll just redo it. You know you're enjoying this."

And there it was......reality. I actually enjoy working on this bike (not to the point where I'm trying to make extra work for myself). I love the preparation and painting, rebuilding wheels, cleaning old parts, installing new brake cables, polishing the chrome, and making this bike look nice again.

I love the fact that I created a unique look for this bike, and that when I ride it around town, folks will point and say, "There goes Kevin The Bike Builder on his Black And Tan Bike. Is that cat hair on the fender?"