After working three 12-hour night shifts, and looking forward to a relaxing day off, I decided that today was the day to give my Deans Marine HMS Amethyst her coat of varnish, to finish her off, before taking some photos of my hard work, to show you all. So it was off to Hobbycraft in the 4x4 this morning to pick up a couple of cans of Humbrol satin varnish for the old girl. I found the “satin varnish for enamel” section (as I had painted Amethyst with Humbrol enamels) and picked up a couple of cans.
Back at home, parked up and alighted only to find the aforementioned 4x4 smelling rather badly and possessing a red-hot back wheel. Looks like a seized back brake. Oh dear! So, after phoning around about 10 local garages I found one that could take a look at the car this afternoon. “Come down after 2 o’clock”, they said.
As it was now only 12:30 I thought, “Great, I can get the first coat of varnish done before I go.”
Out into the garden, set up the ‘Workmate’, shook up can number one and sprayed the hull and deck. Lovely job, no runs or trapped dead flies – unlike my usual varnishing efforts. There was still time for me to spray the three superstructure sections, so I shook up can number two and proceeded to spray. As I have a rather nasty cold it wasn’t until I’d sprayed the third section that I noticed that the varnish smelled a bit different to the first can I’d used. Oh, it must be me, I thought.
A few minutes later I noticed the superstructure sections beginning to sport a rather snazzy crackle-finish in many places – checked can number two and – yep, you saw it coming didn’t you? – Acrylic satin varnish. Turns out some moron in Hobbycraft must have mixed up the cans and some other moron, coming home tired off night shift, with a bad cold (did I mention that?) didn’t notice.
So, I have spent some of my day off carefully scraping off crackle finish paint from the most inaccessible parts of my model’s superstructure, in the hope that I may be able to restore some sort of decent finish eventually.
The observant reader will note that I said “some of my day off”. Yes, I took the aforementioned 4x4 to the garage, who said they’d put it up on the ramp and have a look, advising me to go for a walk for an hour as the mechanic hated having customers watch him when he was working. So I duly toddled off, leaving my mobile number in case they needed to contact me.
45 minutes later I got a phone call from the garage which started off with “I’ve got some bad news for you…”, which wasn’t entirely unexpected, I have to admit, as garages always say that just before they hit you with a whopping bill. Then he said, “No, it’s not your car, that just needs new brake pads and sleeves, we’re fitting those now for you. Trouble is, we’ve lost our electricity supply, the whole street has and it won’t be back on until 7 o’clock tonight.” I pondered the “bad news for me” significance of this message until he further explained, “… so your car is stuck up on the ramp, we can’t get it down until tomorrow morning”. Bad news indeed, as I had to get home in time for Little Spook coming home from school, then get her to her piano lesson in a town 6 miles away and organise an Indian takeaway (from the best Indian takeaway in town, 3 miles from home) for the family tonight, as Mrs Spook won’t be home till about 8 o’clock.
So my comfortable 5 minute car-ride home turned into a 45 minute walk, mostly uphill, Grandpa has stepped in to take the sprog to her piano lesson, thank goodness, and the mouth-watering Indian takeaway will probably end up being a ready-meal from Tesco, just around the corner.
Happy days!