Saturday was a milestone for CUER. The car was finally ready to be painted. The reason this was a milestone is because we will no longer have to sand the outer shell. After a long Friday night with far too much sandpaper, this was a relief for the team.
BOC, having noted our penchant for making a mess (and probably also having noted all the orange smiley faces cropping up around the place since we bought a fluorescent aerosol) kindly offered us the use of their paint bay and special spray gun. So we loaded Endeavour onto the trailer and brought her round to the bay.
Dan called dibs on spraying the first coat and, after careful instruction from Richard (and some practice on an old tin) he was ready to go.
Of course, none of this took place without very careful protection of the non-paintable components (i.e. everything that wasn’t the outer shell), and a significant amount of time was spent taping dust sheets over the entire internal structure.
The first coat was applied with no problems and after turning the car ghost-white the paint gun was handed over to Lucy for coat number 2, which also went on with almost no hitches, apart from the point where the paint got a bit too close to the motor.
The full paint job continued through Sunday with the masking and spraying of the upper shell and canopy.
We now have a glistening white car, which we plan to take testing into an environment full of red dust. The team rule is gloves at all times while handling the car (an idea pinched from Twente) and so far the shell is intact. By the time we’re ready for scrutineering at the end of the week, she will look brilliant.
(blog post by Lucy)
