Phase II complete

Argh, what a morning. The plan -- use my old Wagner Power Painter with its roller attachment to paint the solar box. Before loading it up with paint I checked to make sure the check valves were clear and good to go. Both were. Fill its tank with paint, about 2/3 gallon or so. Climb up on the roof and turn on the pump only to watch the paint move up the tubing to to handle then wait. And wait some more. The roller is still dry.

I'd put on the handle extension to make sure I could easily get to all parts of the west wall of the box. OK, remove the roller from the extension -- dry. Remove the extension and that joint is dry too. WTF? With no handle I turned on the pump again. There was no further movement of the paint up the tube. I figured that one of the check valves had somehow gone awry, so I took the unit down to the workbench and poured bye paint back into the can and chucked the pump into an 18 gallon storage box I'd filled with water so I could clean it thoroughly later. Once the unit's tank was as drained as it would get, it went into the tank too.

Up on the roof again with a paint brush and the can of paint, now holding rather less than 2/3 gallon. I did the west wall first, standing, then sitting on what little roof there was available. I finished more than 3/4 of the distance from the north wall southwards, and finished what was left from the south corner. Next was the east wall. No real problems there outside of dodging some paper wasps I was disturbing as I banged on the wall. By this time the paint was definitely down a bit.

Last was the north wall. I had no idea just how long the paint would last so I started by painting the top part down to the higher roof's level, then began painting the from the west end figuring that would be the bit people would see driving southwards (up) the street. As it turns out, I had just enough to do a neat enough job that it looks good from the street. Up close it's evident that not all the cracks and splits in the plywood were filled, but the surface is covered and that's good enough.

While cleaning the pump I think I found the source of the problem -- the pump body had become unattached to the motor body. It looks like the threads on the locking cap are stripped. As the pump plunger (on the motor body) moves up and down, the pump body did the same. Bummer.

BTW, while the motorized paint pumping roller is a nice idea, it does cause quite a bit of paint to be discarded -- in the tank, on the pump body, in the tubing and in the roller body. I doubt I could have covered the solar box had I used it. The paint brush stretched the paint to its limits.

Soon (a couple weeks maybe) I'll start on the siding installation and the paint won't matter. I think I may have to put in some braces on the plywood panels to make them flatter before actually getting the siding on. Ooh, Phase IIIa!