Do the math

I’ve been painting the first pair of shutters for the past two days, one coat of universal undercoat on each side of each shutter yesterday and two coats of top coat today. I’m not that happy with the results because even after the second top coat you can see patches of undercoat beginning to show through again as it dries. So much for hoping that I’d be able to get away with one coat each of undercoat and top coat.

The paint I’m using is Dulux Basque Red, a traditional colour for shutters and doors in these parts. I had hoped that with the red being such a full colour it would have good coverage and covering power but it appears that I was wrong. Back in the day Dulux was a premium quality brand (at a premium price) when it was owned by the UK’s ICI (Imperial Chemical Industries) but since being taken over by Akso Nobel it appears that the quality bit has been dropped and only the premium price now remains. If I’d known what results I’d be getting I’d have gone for one of the multitude of lower price paint brands, many with no need for undercoat, and got similar, if not better results.

The images below show how the undercoat is beginning to show through again, especially on the edges. If I have to do a third coat it will (a) take more paint and (b) take more time. Even if tomorrow I can turn the shutters over and paint the fronts that means the two pairs will have taken three days to paint. Do the math. I’ve got nine pairs to paint so even if I can keep painting at the rate of two pairs every three days, which I doubt I’ll be able to as I have other things to do (like my excavation work), it’ll take me between two and three weeks to complete all of them. And I shudder at the cost if I keep using Dulux given at the amount of paint I’ve used just on these small shutters.

Yesterday I got to the bottom of why my excavator wouldn’t start and appeared to keep having a flat battery. I surmised that its new battery fitted In China had failed and ordered a new replacement which arrived on Tuesday. I fitted the new battery yesterday and it didn’t solve the problem. The machine stayed totally dead. When I put a meter on both batteries – the original and the new – both were fully charged which told me that the original battery was being charged on the machine and the reason it showed a full charge so quickly when placed on a battery charger was because it was already at 100%.

I then removed the new battery, replaced the original and the machine was still dead so I decided to try it with a fully charged jump pack. Still dead. Then I connected the earth of the jump pack to a a grounded bolt on the machine, got power and the machine started. That told me that the problem was an earthing problem and when I checked I found that because the main engine earth connection had never been tightened it had vibrated and become completely unscrewed (see the left bolt in the photograph below).

In fact NEITHER of the two bolts clamping the fuel tank, the left of which also makes the engine earth connection, had been tightened and that also explained why the tank was sitting about 2 cms too high and too close to the top of the engine cover making it almost impossible to remove the fuel filler cap . I’m very annoyed about this because due to the bolts not being tightened during manufacture I am now 70€ out of pocket for a battery that I have no use for which I’m now trying to return. The Chinese manufacturer is, as usual, very apologetic and admits it was at fault but that doesn’t make up for the time I’ve lost over the past ten days or so. 🙁