in good shape - brunnhilde part 3

The painting project for Brunnhilde has finally getting off to a quick start. I have spent much time thinking through the process, the materials I would need, and most importantly decided amongst the alternatives, from the simplest and least cost and work, to the most complex, most costly, and with most work.


I chose to go with what a professional paint finisher would. I have time to observe other peoples' result, as well as factory finish in a Pleasureway Sprint RV with painted bumper and wheel arches. Seeing them the decision was easy as I want a result that would look factory. I also devoted a lot of time carefully choosing the color. It is all too tempted to go with very dark color like charcoal as found on the newer Sprinters.

i just purchased this tub filler/diverter valve i plan for my guest bath renovation; it is the nicest looking one of all that i have ever seen; made of solid brass in Germany

There is a back story behind the Grohe tub filler/diverter that I recently bought. When I first moved into my current house, I did some temporary not so renovation of the master bath in which I completely revamped all the plumbing fixtures. For the shower that is also a step-down Roman tub, I did a lot of research and found this Grohe tub filler/diverter to be the only one I like due to the clean and almost sculptured appearance, in addition to the ergonomics and functional quality. However I prefer to have a dedicated diverter valve mounted at a level that you don't need to bend down to reach it. The other important consideration is, with all tub filler/diverter, each time you shut off the water (like when you soap and scrub your body), you have to pull it again when you turn the water back on to shower. With the dedicated diversion valve, you don't have to.

I really wanted this Grohe tub filler/diverter but without the diverter function. Unfortunately Grohe do not make a tub filler in this styling.

Fast forward to now. I recently been thinking of renovating the guest bathroom which I want to make it into Japanese inspired one. I started searching on the web for this as it will go really well with my Grohe hand shower that I have for a long time. I found the lowest price on plumbersstock.com - at $123.80 with free shipping, about $25 cheaper than the closest lowest price. Like the saying goes, if it is too good to be true it must not. Over the years I have observed the online plumbing suppliers and have purchase all my high end fixtures and never have a problem. A lot of them runs many different sites and almost never use their real long term business name. The reasons, amongst many, is when the online entities goes bad, they just start a new one.

I was a calculated risk that I decided to make the purchase. I know I can always initiate a credit card charge back if things goes sour. I tried put it into the shopping cart and found that the site do a bait and switch. A pop up screen appears with two choices. One is the $123.80 low price ships within 1-3 weeks and the other is the now inflated $152.83 in stock and ready to ship. The former shows quantity 0 and the latter quantity 1 to bait those not observant. Not me. I could not make the change to order the low price as advertised.

I wasn't going to let them off this easily as I have invested time to shop for the lowest price. I found the phone number on the page that show what a great company this is. I call them up.

The staff answer the phone still try to spin the story that the low price will have to wait for they order the item from Grohe and then ship to me, and that it will take about 3 weeks. Since I have no hurry with the project, I played along. I did the order during the telephone call. I asked her to send me the order invoice after the call and she promised. The order receipt never come.

Over a month had gone by and the item never show up. I gave them a call again and she postponed another 3 weeks. I asked the order invoice again and she promised but never sent. I waited and still the item never come. I would eventually saw they charged my credit card, and I gave them another 10 days thinking that it was in transit. Still the item never came. I call them us for the third time and this time she pretend to check the shipping status. She came back and said it was shipped lost.

By now I decided to give her the ultimatum. I told her I had screen shots of their bait and switch, credit card charge and prepare to go to file a complaint with Better Business Bureau. She offer me to cancel the order and refund my credit card charge. I decided I wasn't going to let them off this lightly and insisted I want my purchase to be honored. I know businesses will avoid credit card charge back (consumer initiated) like a plague as it is very costly hit. She made song and dance again that she would place another order with Grohe and would be another 3 weeks ETA.

A few days later UPS delivered it to my door. Clearly she decided to expedite the shipping with the item she already have. What is interesting is there are three entities with this one purchase:

the online entity: PlumbersStock.com with an Utah address
the credit card charged by: 8 G.O. Green Enterprise of Utah
the shipping pick ticket: Southwest Plumbing Supply with the same Utah address

a braised chuck roast

with spaghetti noodles

as i said, i eat a lot of soup noodles - this one with pork, clams, and chinese choysum

i have been very dissatisfied with the domestic can whole tomato so i broke my normal self-imposed budget for this can from Italy; it costs more than twice of domestic ones

i am still eating my stash of the home made smoked salmon from last autumn - so delicious

For he painting project, I went to Harborfreight Tools to shop for a syphon feed spay gun. They have 4 different ones between $18 and $24. I came home with the $24 one.

my LPHV gun (left) next to the shinny new Chinese made syphon feed gun

Once home, I set up the gun and filled it with water to test it out. I want an adjustment that delivers a small spray pattern and volume since I don't have a paint booth. The gun can only be properly adjusted with real paint has a higher viscosity than plain water. Testing it with water give me some idea how low the gun can go. Also being such cheap gun I want to discover any problem well in advance of the paint job. For example, if one of the feed holes of the spray nozzle is misdrilled, or the metering pin and the bore has tolerance problem I want to know now.

look at those terrible runs; relax, it is just water

i happen to catch the Met's production of die Meistersinger von Nürnberg - it is Wagner's longest at nearly 5 hours long; our Renée is the program host and interviewer for the singers

The last time I did automotive painting was when I was in high school. A problem with buying professional automotive paint supplies is everything is $50. The paint companies also want you to believe you must buy this and that additive, and special adhesion promoter. I initially was very concerned about painting plastic, and thought there must be special paint formulation for plastic due to their flexibility. It turns out most automotive paint nowadays are designed to cope with flexible surfaces as plastic exterior parts are the norm.

One main reason for my decision to go with the professional method is, with the custom color (anything that requires mixing by the paint shop) they are all high gloss. Most people don't realize our eyes and brain can process and discern millions of color. A lot of big box stores want to sell you paint from the few hundreds of paint sample chips. I learnt this after painting my own house early on.

To achieve the flatter sheen one have to use gloss reducer additive. The gloss reducer only available in a minimum of 1 quart, at $77, which cost more than a quart of paint.

i went paint shopping yesterday and came home with just about everything i need; i also decided to skip a few items that cost another few $20 bills that are "you came this far, you should use them to be on the safe side"

Today I took advantage of the mild and overcast sky to remove all the plastic parts to be painted.

the previous owner was not the most careful of driver and i will have to do some plastic repair

the darker color spots are shaded by the mud flap in sharp contrast to the sun-bleached surfaces

the rear bumper is secured by two main bolts behind the reflector

The MB service manual is next to useless for reference on how to remove the bumper fascia and the end caps. There is a lot more steps that the manual made no mention.

there are many plastic clips all need to be carefully pull away from the sheet metal lips - the service manual made no mention of these

after which one hinge the main bumper fascia upwards

the end caps are attached to the main fascia with interlocking plastic tabs, but needs to be slide out horizontally from the plastic support on the side

here is the plastic support for the end cap attached to the body

the inside of the end cap

the main fascia needs to be hinge up to be remove - i would learnt that I need to open both rear door to provide enough space as it hinges up

i have always wonder where is the air vent exhaust from the cabin - it is behind the end cap fascia (the leading black rectangle shape); it has 4 rubber flaps function as one way valve

i have long loathed this chrome front license plate support; it is no doubt a North America specific add on and i have no plan to put it back; too much keep-on-truckin' aesthetics for me

behind it is the elongated raised platform designed to accept European license plate

removing the front bumper is relatively straight forward with the special attention to carefully detach the ambient temperature sensor first

here is one of the two side support for the front bumper fascia - the fascia just slide onto it's tracks

inside the front bumper fascia

the ambient air temperature sensor

the plastic wheel arch is secured with 8 torx screws

both the plastic wheel arch and the mud flap caused abrasion wear on the body paint - a dumb ass design by MB, though I am glad they can be removed, prepared, and painted off the vehicle

the naked look

pacific northwest must have the highest collection of VW Vanagons as well as the Westfalia Vanagon Campers; saw this one a while ago whild out for a walk