Red Dog and Me

This is an on-going dialog between me and a certain motor scooter, namely a 2009 Piaggio MP3 500 that came to live with me in October of 2009. I've named the scooter Red Dog and as yet have not determined its gender. In the past when I've named boats, bikes, and other like characters I've thought of them as feminine due to their behavior characteristics. Red Dog I'm not so sure about...we'll see. Update: OK, Red Dog's a girl...with an attitude

Friday, January 1, 2010

Jan 01, 2010 It’s time to paint the Uni-Go hitch


New Years Day always seems a bit slow for some reason, not much happening and hardly any stores open. Yesterday I picked up a couple of cans of Krylon Gloss Black paint to use on the hitch, then today I changed my mind. The black paint on Red Dog looks like more of a satin finish so it was back to the local True Value for an exchange. They’re only closed 3 days a year and today wasn’t one of them, lucky for me.

Since it’s raining and nasty outside I set up a “paint booth” area in the far corner of the garage where I could do the deed. There’s a ceiling mount electric heater right above the same area and although it hadn’t been fired up for at least a couple of years it came up to speed and soon had the corner nice and comfy. I also have a set of heat lamps mounted on their own adjustable stand to help dry the paint so everything looked good to go.


It’s been awhile since I painted indoors and I’d forgotten how nasty the paint fumes from rattle cans are but it soon came back to me. Yuk! I hung the hitch from an old laundry hanger gizmo I’d picked up at a garage sale years ago and it worked perfect. Well at least until I decided to move it slightly so I could get a better angle to paint from. Down it went so I had to do that coat, the third one I think, all over again. No big deal, it just had a couple of minor scratches and since the paint hadn’t hardened out yet it took another coat without problems.

I’m going to let it set up overnight and tomorrow I’ll hang it on Red Dog to see what it looks like. So far so good I think.

I wonder how other people spend New Years Day?

2 comments:

  1. Nice post loved to read and the scooter in the title
    image is very cool do you really have that scooter.
    Than i would like to know more about it.
    scooter

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  2. Hi Jame,

    The scooter in the title page is Red Dog when I first brought her home. Today she's sporting a windscreen that makes riding at higher speeds more comfortable and a top case so I can carry more stuff. If you really want to learn more about the Piaggio MP3 series of scooters one of the best places to start is the Vespa Forum. Here's a link to it, hope you have fun and thanks for your comments:

    http://www.modernvespa.com/forum/index.html

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