Starting to look at pieces and parts.

PAINT and PREP 

After mocking up the chassis,  The parts were broken apart and sent to the powder coater.  I had a number of options for finishing the chassis and of course all the other metal parts.  

I considered painting myself, pun intended, and also using powder coating.   

Painting it all myself would entail prepping, sanding, priming, painting multiple coats, and a top coat. It would also mean a lot of fumes and as an "old guy" I need to be careful about inhaling chemicals.  OK - everyone should be careful about inhaling chemicals, but my lungs are already coated with about 60 years of paint and varnish from a long time in the workshop, so any additional is really bad.

Powder Coating means dropping it off at the local company, in this case the very nice folks at "Colorado Powder Coating, in Commerce City, and they sandblast, mask, and apply the coating.  It just takes 2 weeks for each batch. 

I then looked at the Leaf Springs, and boy are they "crusty"!  They came to me all assembled.  I separated the leafs but left the main ones attached as they are at the ends with bolts thru the bushings.  It looked like it was going to be a pain in the behind to break apart and get back together, so I am going to leave them as-is for the powder coater to work with.  I know that the coating on the ends may suffer a little, but taking them apart and putting them back again would turn out to be a major exercise in frustration. 

Next to go for coating will be the main frame. I plan to stage the coating batches one-a-week to spread things out.  So it will be around June 26th before I get the chassis back and the work really begins. 

Thanks for reading - 

Poppapope