Bens Bike Build

I got the painting of Bens bike frame finished yesterday and this afternoon we popped to Halfords and bought a tin of lacquer. A quick rub down with 1200 grit wet-and-dry paper before as a key and although I guessed about 2-3 coats of lacquer would be fine I decided to use up the whole tin so it got about 5 or 6 coats before the sky began to cloud over again. Next weekend I can begin to put it all together again - assuming I can remember how.

While in Halfords we looked at the bike bits. I need to get him another handlebar tube and a new quill stem / handlebar clamp. The reason I know these names now is that I bought a copy of "Zinn & The Art of Mountain Bike Maintenance". I don't plan on reading it as its massive - just using it for reference for now. Anyway Halfords is okay for basic stuff, plus its cheap, but it only seems to stock the handlebar clamps that have a clampy thing at both ends and no quills.

Looks like I'll have to go to a specialist next week, but I was planning to do that anyway sometime as there are apparently two different derailleur makes I can have and the bike shop needs to see the frame to know which one I need. Seems like a load of nonsense to me; I just want him to have gears. Whats so complicated about that?

Anyhow the frame looks good. It could be a lot better but lets face it hes only going to drop it, fall off, etc so it wouldnt be in good nick for long and I (& Ben I think) was getting tired of the length of time its taking. Frankly by the time Ive finished spending I probably could have bought him a semi decent bike. Unfortunately no pics of the frame right now as its still a little too tacky to move around.

As for the gardening, we planted seeds for about 13 Little Gem lettuce, a pot of Spinach, Spring Onions, 15 seed Potatoes, 5 pots of dwarf Beans and 3 rows of Carrots....and we still havent finished.