Back in business

First post of the new year! This year I resolve to finish restoring the Mustang by my high school graduation on May 31, and if I put the pedal to the metal I might just do it.

We visited the garage last night for the first time in a while (my winter break was spent skiing). Dad and I worked to finish the job we had started by filling in the remainder of the holes around the battery tray we fabricated with weld tacks and grinding down the excess metal to reveal any missed spots. The grinding took some time (even with a 36-grit sanding disc on the pneumatic die grinder), but I took it down to a manageable level. Grinding away at the metal also cleaned up the surface for further welding, but that didn’t stop my dad from making of mess of my hard work…

Now that we’d moved to a smaller guage wire (from .030 to .024), Dad discovered that it was possible to lay a continuous bead along the sheet metal. Dad’s zealous trigger finger, combined with the fact that grinding made the metal thinner and that one of us had accidentally bumped the wire-feed dial from 30 to 40, led to numerous blowouts. By the time I had stopped him from wreaking havoc on my car, Dad had managed to place a few sizable holes in the place of what had just been smooth, clean welds. It was time to leave before we got a chance to perform any repair work, so at least I have a plan for my next jaunt at TLG.

Expect a much more frequent posting schedule in the upcoming months. I plan to visit during the week whenever possible, and every weekend.