MattMobile Update: New Coat of Primer

It's been a strange mix lately of super productivity, and extreme lack thereof. The lack I speak of has been largely brought about by travel, which has taken me out of town. I spent ten days in southern Georgia working on Star Trek Continues, then just last weekend went to Toronto for four days for a bit of business. (not the funny kind, mind you)

But the work continues, nonetheless.

I have definitely gotten to understand the long-running problem faced by fellow batmobile builders, which is one of lack of progress. I think what happens (as I suspected) is that a project this daunting is just simply hard to stay motivated on. When you look ahead at the ocean of work you have ahead of you, and the tiny puddle of accomplishments behind you, it's easy to be dissuaded. It's almost a daily exercise of simply forcing myself out into the garage to do some work.

The upside is that once that mental threshold is crossed for the day, and I start in on the car, the time really flies. I actually really enjoy working on the car. I find it both relaxing and theraputic. And it's also pretty darn awesome knowing that I'm getting closer to having a finished batmobile. But alas, as mentioned, I understand the dilemma.

That said, today was pretty productive. If there's one thing I hate more than sanding, it's painting. Actually, the painting part is pretty fun. It's all of the prep and clean up that makes it no fun. My goal for today was to lay down a coat of buff primer. This is a thick, heavy, sandable primer whose goal is to not only fill in minor scrapes and pin holes, but also to reveal problem areas. And reveal it did!! I found about one million little areas that need attention.

The counter to this is that it also revealed just how much I've already accomplished. The front fenders are REALLY looking beautiful, and I'm super happy with how they have come together. These were the most obviously wonky part of the shell, and I thought it very important that the first thing you see when the car is coming at your face look symmetrical and smooth. I'm definitely getting there.

Here's how the drivers side looks. I've put in many hours working on this side, primarily on the side intake hole and the vents. Still a lot of micro-details to work on, but it's really taking shape. Not really sure if the pictures properly convey how far this has come... or how much more work there is to do.

A closeup view of the side intake. Looking really smooth!

And here are the side vents. Still a lot of work remaining here, and a little bit of symmetry I'll need to establish. I'll need to wrap my head around how to best approach that, as I currently don't know. For the record, many of the names for parts of the car are simply being made up by me as I go :D

Here's a bit of a wider view of the front fender, which shows the drivers side also.

Alas, our old friend the gas cap. It seems like ages ago that I first glassed this into place and started working on smoothing out the seam lines. I've learned so much since then, both through research and trial and error. The work I've done on the front fenders was all based on things I learned while doing this little feller.

You can see from this picture that I'm starting to work my way around to the passenger side. I've done a lot of work cleaning up the seam line that rolled over the front fender and down into the wheel well. It's come a VERY long way, and for the most part I'm happy. But the wheel well hole itself is not perfectly round... or even close. There's a big lump on one side that will need to be attended to. But one step at a time.

LOTS of work has been done on this fin. It's really looking good, and many of the problems have been attended to. I think the focus will now shift to cleaning up the seam line that runs down the back of it, and making sure the profile is nice.

That's about it for now! As you can see, much accomplished. Also much to go. Bo should be here tomorrow to do some more work on the frame, so that should be cool. And yes, there is more travel in my future, so stay tuned.