Rusty, Faded and Burned!

Daniel and I went for a walk.  I thought the flowers smelt wonderful but he was preoccupied.  I did warn him not to walk through the stinging nettles as they can bring tears to your eyes when they brush sensitive areas.

There has been some very light sign of rust forming on the steel roof frame that forms the mounting of the three Houdini hatches.  Also some sign of rust on the DTV aerial mount and the anchor rope mounting eye in the centre of the cabin roof.  The change in the weather gave me the opportunity to rub back all these areas removing the rust and repainting them.  I suspect the problem with the Houdini frames is a lack of paint when Waiouru was first painted. The plan is to apply a coat of primer and then undercoat followed by at least two top coats.  The rubbing back, primer and undercoat all went well.  I struck a problem with the first topcoat when my back gave out halfway through painting the first Houdini.  Daniel managed to help me off the cabin roof and after walking slowly around the pain abated to a background ache.  I then managed to get back up onto the roof and complete the first topcoat.

Caught by the photographer painting the DTV mast mount.

One thing became very apparent when applying the first topcoat.  The roof paint has faded quite severely!  Initially I thought I’d have to repaint the entire roof, but after having a rest and thinking about the situation I got out the bottle of TCut and experimented on a patch of the roof.  The TCut bought the roof paint back to its original colour.  Having proved to myself there is an alternative solution I ceased the experiment, but not before burning the palm of my right hand on the steel of the very hot cabin roof.  I’m now going to experiment with the Craftmaster polish and see if it will also bring the faded paint back to it’s original colour.  There is a hell of an area to cover and somehow I think I’ll be doing the entire roof over a number of days.

The new roof paint doesn’t look quite the same colour as the original paint and I’ve decided to mask around the Houdini’s and the anchor point to ensure there is a distinctive line between the new and old paint.

But now it’s time to rest the back and drain a cold can of lager whilst watching Jan prepare dinner.