Finally Completed Sanding The Velomobile.... On With The Paint!

For all of you who have been following my progress with the velomobile project the past couple of weeks have been nothing but sanding, priming, wet sanding, body touch up.  Then you repeat this process over and over and over again until you have either a flawless body or you go insane after repeating the process over and over again.  I think I fall somewhere near the flawless body and went past insanity at least a week back.  Actually the body looks really good at this point so I made the decision to move ahead with final painting of the project.  With doing nothing but sanding there was really no need to post daily progress reports as each day looked like the last until today. 

I knew that when I had to paint the body that the dolly that the body had been cradled in all of these months would not do.  I needed something that would support the body from the inside yet be tall enough to paint the underside. This framework I put together today from scrap wood I had laying  around the shop.  It stands three feet tall, two feet wide and four feet long.   Light enough to move around easily but still strong enough to support the body of the velomobile.

Here you can see the velo body on the sanding cradle and the difference in height between it and the painting stand.  The big problem with the cradle as far as paint is concerned is the that the body is support by nylon web straps.  These would just be in the way when I am painting the body.

Here's the body now fully supported by the painting frame.  The interior of the velomobile will remain painted in gray primer and all of the exterior now can be painted now without any complications.  It also is plenty high enough off of the ground so that I can easily paint the underside of the body.  Luckily there is not a lot of painting to do on the underside and so it should be quick work to get this part of the painting done.

Here's a good shot of the painting frame inside of the velomobile body.  Once the body has been painted I will lift the body off of the framework and then place it directly on the the TerraTrike frame that has been ready for that day months ago. 

The now empty velomobile body dolly will be disassembled and recycled for other projects in the future.  It has served it's purpose very well.   This will be a quick job and will free up the space I need in the garage to be able to layout the new paint scheme for the velomobile.  I have the pin striping tape on hand and some decals for the body all ready to go.  I will try and get photos taken as I set up the body for paint in the coming week.  It will be nice to see some color on the project after all of this time. Total hours on the project has risen to 563 at this point.  Lots of hours to be sure but also a lot of fun along the way.  Check back soon as the project will start moving forward again in a very short time.