While I was cutting titanium, Malcolm was sanding rudders, doghouse cover and forward hatch cover.

When he was done, I decided to test something.

When we shot the final coat of primer, there were some… minor blemishes. Runs, basically. Not many, but a couple. Now when I was in high school, I worked at a body shop. In those days, if you screwed up and got a run in the primer, it was no big deal. You simply sanded the run out and then painted. But I’m not going to paint for at least a year. If the run occurred in the paint, then you sanded it out using very fine sandpaper. Depending on the paint, you may go as high as 1500 grit. Then buffed it out. I remember working on a 1972 911S Porsche. The owner wanted (and paid for) a hand rubbed lacquer finish. After painting, the entire car was hand sanded with progressively finer sandpaper and buffed out. The final result was incredible. It was like looking in a mirror.

I wanted to see if I could sand out the runs, and restore the shiny finish. So I brought down sandpaper grits from 400 up to 2000. To start, I only went up to 1000 grit. The finish was very smooth and somewhat glossy. Then I hit it with the buffer. The result was incredible.

And this is primer! 🙂

So now, whenever I get stuck, I’ll work on the runs and sags.