I don't know that I've made it clear in my blog entries, but the blasting business had been in a holding pattern for a few weeks longer than expected. The biggest delay was in the fact my primary piece of equipment, the compressor, was getting a fancy paint job. Long story short, the weather was not cooperative and the compressor waited patiently partially disassembled for it to get warm and dry enough.

I decided to make the most of my time and start working on my old Chevy. I've had a long list of stuff I've been wanting to do with it, so I just started cranking away on it. My reasoning was I'll thrash on it until the blasting business starts up and just enjoy driving it for the rest of the year. So far in this thrash I've replaced the ignition points with an electronic module, finished installing the all new door latches, made the electric door poppers work properly, began fabricating a 4 barrel carb intake, built a new exhaust system, put in dropped spindle uprights, installed new king pins, all new front brakes, fixed the brake problem I had (I think), modified the front suspension to take the airbag springs, ran wires/hose for airbag system, and notched the rear of the frame to drop the rear down further. It's been a lot of work and fun but I was starting to get a little anxious. After all, not only is it costing money to have this fun, no money is coming in!

Finally, the weather was perfect for painting. I think given the fact it is a piece of construction equipment, it came out looking pretty neat! But the weather was going to be cool and for the next few days after that. So I decided to give the paint plenty of cure time while I put the front air ride in the Chevy. On Monday I was waiting on parts for the Chevy I had ordered and I figured the paint was cured enough on the compressor to sand it. Jenn and I are wetsanding away when I realize I need to call about the big Spring car show to see about vendor booths. It turns out the deadline was that afternoon! After some sweet talk and a quick fax, I have my 20'x20' space reserved. We finished up the sanding just before dark. Buffing out the sanding scratches and polishing out the buffing swirls would have to wait until the next day. In a moment of inspiration, I realized the Chevy is looking pretty cool laying flat on its face (because of the air ride I've been installing) and it would be neat to soda blast the driver's half of the whole car with the Blast Off logo on it. Now I know longer feel guilty about doing this work on the Chevy because it's just me working on my cool car show display! The fact my personal car comes out of the whole deal looking cooler and performing better, well that's just a fringe benefit.

Last Monday, I get a phone call from a guy looking for a media blaster. Turns out he's a client of my Dad's and he has a rear axle housing that needs to be blasted ASAP. I told him my compressor is being put back together and the earliest I could get to it would be Wednesday afternoon. That gave me Tuesday to buff/polish and Wednesday morning to put everything back together. This obligation gave me even more motivation to get my blasting rig back together as soon as I could. The blasting job went very well with only one hitch- I only took 2 bags of media and ran out with about a quarter sized spot left on the bottom. The whole job took an hour and I would've normally charged $100- but I gave him a hefty discount. I also offered to come back the next day to touch it up, but he was extremely pleased with the results and said there was no need.

This weekend, I get another flash of inspiration and design a flyer. Then I spent most of the day Monday and Tuesday driving all over handing out my flyer and business cards to paint shops, restorers, and hot rod shops. I really had no expectations, but the response was really positive! Almost everyone said that there was nobody in the area doing what I'm doing. There's one guy on the South side that has a small stationary set up. Other people were taking stuff to the local marble blasters and hoping it came back OK!

My first full car job is tomorrow (Thursday). The shop is making Eleanor clones out of '65 Mustangs and I'm going to blast one for them. I'll update this entry with pics of the compressor, my car, and the blasted car tomorrow night.