The last road block, or so I hope, was breached yesterday when I located the elusive ‘Arm & Hammer Washing Soda‘ at Fred Meyer. I’d tried all the other local establishments but they seemed to be a little too ‘high faluten’ for something as old-school as ‘Washing Soda‘.

In parallel with my quest for the chemical, I have been moving along with the body work on the gas tank.  It seems to be a never ending process!  I have professional body working sanding blocks and papers, and maybe using high quality products is highlighting every little low spot on the tank.    At some point I just have to relent and realize this is NOT going to be perfect.   I do not have a spray booth, and I can’t use multi-stage paints to get the really professional look.   So, maybe a little imperfection will be OK.

This is what it looks like right now after the 5th round of filling and sanding.

The rest of the low spots on the tank I can live with, but the high-spots where I ground down the mounting studs for the ‘Kawaski’ badge, I won’t leave that way.  They will look horrible once the paint is applied.  I may have to get in there with the grinder again and make some intentional low spots, fill, sand and move on.

Just fore reference, this is what the badges used to look like on this tank before I started:

More updates as they happen!