Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Ti bars hitting the postal waves...

Hey y'all,

Been wracked with a fall dose of the cold/respiratory bug.  I worked through it Friday through Sunday but Monday morning when I was off duty from the FD I was wasted.  Spent all day Monday sleeping, coughing, spitting up green globs of icky stuff, and generally feeling like a turd.

With a day wasted, there was no way I could afford another day to wallow in my misery, so I got off to the shop Tuesday morning for better or worse.  Ti bars were on the menu, and I had some hungry/eager customers to serve up.

A 28" grip on the rotaing spit, getting it's end cap welded in place...
Cooling before moving on to have the finsih detailed...
Working when sick was equal parts comedy and frustration...my nose kept dripping into my helmet every time I flipped it down to weld, eventually building up and running out the bottom and onto the weld table. I felt like I was bathing in a pool of germs, quite ironic when the Ti environment has to be so meticuously clean.  The funniest occurrance was when I could feel a sneeze sneaking up: you know, that familiar tingling sensation and pressure build up.  I was in the middle of a bead and could feel it coming...I tried to stave it off for just a few more seconds until I could finish the run, but alas, there was no sticking you finger in this dam.  Suddenly, the sneeze ripped through me, sending my body into a convulsive reaction, blue arc lighting up the room from torch through space back to the bar, my helmet knocked askew and my glasses bent.  I had a mucous web spread from my lip to my helmet.  It was one heck of a mess...would have loved to see that one on camera ;)  For what it's worth, all bars were decontaminated with alcohol before wrapping :)

Working on office stuff this morning, painting this afternoon, and then gearing up for Sue's road bike for the first of next week. 

I updated the expose on Smoked Out, check it out for the newest insights into the land of framebuilders...
http://www.velocipedesalon.com/forum/f22/

cheers,

rody

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