Bad Motor-scooter Part 2

Since I know everyone has been sitting on the edge of their seats waiting to see what the results are, I present to you...the bike! Oscar (the bike's name is Oscar, the truck behind him is Rudy) was recently stripped of his factory finish and given a new paint job. He doesn't look too bad with the side panels and everything on there. Honestly, though, I liked it better when the tank was down to the bare metal. Oh well.
I also put on a new drive chain before taking him out on the road. That improved the performance quite a bit. The next step is to take a trip up to St. Louis and talk my younger brother into helping me clean the carburetors.

I have been working on some bowls that will become batter bowls in the near future. I threw a couple tonight, but neglected to bring the camera out, so no pictures yet (I just love keeping everyone waiting, it's how I make sure you all come back). Luckily we have off school this Friday for Easter break, so I will be able to get down to it for two full days before family stuff on Sunday.
Oh! And would you like to hear something funny? Not really laugh out loud funny, but more of a hit yourself in the head with a hammer funny. I was disappointed, but not surprised at not being able to go to NCECA. I especially wanted to go to the Making Through Living, Living Through Making pre-conference, so I was very excited to learn that they would be streaming it live on the web. I still had to work, but figured I could catch a little bit of it during lunch and such. When lunch rolled around I got my pb&j and hunkered down in the break/conference room ready for some good time pottery fun. I log on to the computer, find the web site and boom; there's the video! Sweet! Now I can enjoy a cool 30 minutes away from the kiddos watching some great potters do their thing. After a second though, I notice there is a problem...the computer doesn't have any sound! Sure I can see the great things they are doing, but when they stop to answer a question or explain something I cannot hear all the great things they are saying. Once again my plans are foiled...

Bad Motor-scooter

I have been spending a lot of time outside the studio because of track (I don't know if I have said on here before that I am an assistant track coach, pole vault). I am planning to step that back a bit, though, only coaching a couple days a week. There have been other projects as well, however. The biggest of which is this.

This is the 1982 Honda CM450e that I purchased a couple years ago. Up until three days ago it was the factory maroon in color. This weekend I spent almost two full days sanding it down to the bare metal. I really dig how the bare metal looks, but will be painting it; it doesn't look as good with the seat on it.

The seat covers the back fender too much. So the tank and side covers will be painted olive drab, which goes a bit deeper and a bit brighter with the clear coat on it. There will also be a black star on the side of the tank. Of course I may strip all that off again later if I decide I don't like it. I will do this for sure if I ever get a smaller seat. Obviously this is a project that will be going on for quite some time.


On the clay front I have been pumping out some mugs and such. These were photographed promptly after getting handles, and blogger then just as promptly turned the picture on its side. Why does it do that?

And here is one of a pair of planters (left) and a stack of very small bowls. The bowls were tests to fine tune the form. They each have a tallish trimmed foot that you cannot see due to their stacked nature. As such they remind me of a small set of stacked forms I did in college that had a similar shape...I wonder what ever happened to those.

And now I am off to put one more coat of primer on the bike's tank before I go to bed. More to come in the future. Tschus.

-Rob

post script - along with the motorcycle theme, check out Jesse Irwin's Motorcycle Don't Run Blues. Great stuff.