The wall-mounted version was an afterthought in an effort to sell these things. That brought on a whole a new set of challenges.
In other words, fun
The guy in blue below — was an expert painter from NAPA who’d worked with NASCAR doing paintjobs, so this guy’s top-shelf. He was intrigued by what I was up to, so he volunteered to help me out.
I’ve always been lucky that way.
When I explained the problem about trying to paint inside the slots without spraying an excessive coat on the face, he told me that it wouldn’t be a problem.
I disagreed — but I gave him a shot to show me. He was wrong.
In taking a belt sander to the face for another try — I figured it out, and the answer was right in front of me all along.
A template of the face itself — allowing us to cover the inside first, take the template off, and you’re set to finish off the face.
Problem solved — and not by an expert
But it isn’t about who solved this and who solved that — it’s about people genuinely working together in pursuit of the same goal.
I hoped to sell to a high-end market of functional art — and for that, I needed a paintjob you could see your reflection in.
The automotive paint process was suggested to me by a friend in Michigan — and that’s how I ended up at NAPA. And that’s how it goes when you open the door to ideas from others. And it’s so much more enjoyable that way.
And this is not even addressing all the trial and error that came before that trip to NAPA.
But the time I got everything ironed out, my career in IT was taking off — and that was far more interesting than trying to sell these things. I accomplished what I set out to do with the wall-mounted wheel, and that’s what mattered to me most.
One Voice Became Two 