Cell finishing & Transport handles

Oct 30 - Nov 5, 2007

There's a lot of finish work to perform on the mirror cell. Both sides have to be sealed, the "up" side has to be painted black, and the "down" side has to have additional finish coats of clear urethane applied. All this takes time, especially with the spray Spar Urethane because it requires so much drying time if you can't re-coat it within 90 minutes (then you wait 72 hours!).

So, while working on the cell finishing, I thought I'd grab the transport handles and finish them at the same time. Might as well, it's all the same type of work - sand, sand, sand, paint, paint, spray.

Things are pretty far along today. The cell is done except for a final rub-down with #0000 wool and the handles need one more painted coat or urethane. Then, it will be time to put the goodies onto the cell.

Nov 25, 2007

Wow! What happened to November? I'm sitting in Tokoyo airport (Narita) looking at this last post and realizing that the only work I finished on the mount in November was to complete finish work on the cell and handles. And they're not fully assembled yet, either!

In my defense, there were some major house projects to get done and then my son arrived with his fiancee for the Thanksgiving holiday. He's on his way for another tour with the Army in Korea.

Darn it! I won't be back from this trip until about December 6th. I'm seriously considering sending the mirror out for figuring since I seem to have so little free time to work even on the mount.

Dec 9, 2007

I'm back and finishing the cell and handles up! The handles only needed the wheels, bolts, and pads attached. I decided to just finish them up with a #0000 steel wool rub-down because they look good already.

The mirror cell needed a bit more than just bolt-ons - there's a final touch-up coat of flat black involved and some time delay for the battery tape to set up. Well, at least I get to work this indoors instead of the garage. It's gotten cold in Portland since I was last here.

The kit for the PMC was good but I was missing the wire tack-downs. I just used what was on-hand in the garage - not great but functional. This is the way the primary mirror cell looks like with everything except the pivot pins attached. I was a little nervous about securing the pins onto the PMC with the substantial lag bolts but all was well in the end. They have to come out and go back in at least twice more, so I'll probably have to re-coat them with black at the end.

Those shiny pivot pins, lag bolts, battery terminal connectors, and whatever else has gotten scratched or reflective during assembly must now be re-coated with flat black. Bother - another masking job. But anyway, here's a picture of a hinged corner after the touch-ups.

I'm hoping that I'm in the clear with the PMC at this point. Disconcertingly, there's a note in the next section of the assembly manual about fitting up the PMC into the mirror box before its final finishing because you may have to sand the PMC's edges if the fit is too snug. Yikes! Maybe that text should come a little earlier in the manual??