MAX is coming back together, and we’re now in final assembly mode. Time to plug the parts in the chassis. Here’s the finished frame, painted a trendy and eye-catching gray.
And we’ve used only the finest of materials and techniques — indoor/outdoor enamel from the local hardware store, the stuff with pictures of lawn furniture on the can. And we painted it with a combination of a spray gun for the big areas and a foam paintbrush for the nooks and crannies. It looks decent, in an industrial sort of way, but it doesn’t look like something you’d see at a car show. It looks like something you’d drive.
We gave it a coat of gray primer before we gave it the gray finish coat, but a lot of people couldn’t tell the difference.
“Are you primering it again?”
Nope, this is the finish coat, it’s glossier than the primer if you look close.
“Gray, huh? This is how it’s going to look when it’s done? You’re not going to paint it black? Man, you must have got a deal on gray.”
Nope, it’s gray by choice, and the gray cost as much as any other color on the shelf.
The reason car chassis are traditionally black is that black doesn’t show grease and grime, thus pleasing the end user. But gray shows where oil is leaking, for example, and one man’s grime is another man’s diagnostic tool.
Anyway, I wanted you to know it’s gray on purpose, we didn’t just spray on the primer and get bored.
Photo by Jack McCornack
