August 23

Now that the warm room walls were cleaned, I came out on this Sunday to begin painting them. John had been out since Thursday evening doing his imaging as well as working around the observatory. He got quite a bit done. Even after removing the circular steel rail two weeks ago there still was a lot of rail support stuff on top of the wall that needed to be pulled down. John took care of that before I arrived, leaving only a 2X6 cap board on top of the east and west walls that will remain there until we’re ready to set comparable steel beams in their place. After three days he was pretty beat and headed home just as I started to paint.

We’re using a very light blue semi-gloss. I did all the normal taping and edge trimming and realized quickly that two gallons weren’t going to do the job by a long shot. I only completed about half the walls and that’s going to need a second coat. I’ve painted cinder block before but I have never seen paint soak in like this. I would put a nice heavy coat on the cinder block that covered everything. Over the next 20 seconds or so I could hear these crackling sounds as the paint got sucked into the pores and holes of the block. I was out of paint in two hours and could have finished easily if I had enough paint. I think I’ll need 2 gallons to complete the first coat and another 2 gallons for the entire second coat – I hope.

Two views of the partially painted warm room

The steel dome rail system can be seen on top of the cinder block wall when we took possession in June

Only a 2X6 cap piece of wood is left of the original rail system.

Thank you for being patient as I’ve published several entries a day. I started this blog about three weeks ago and had to do a lot to catch up and you may have suffered with some unusual verb tenses and switching them back and forth – I know I did. I had to go back on notes and emails and remembrances with John about exactly what we did and when we did it. From the next point on I will be current with the observatory progress and probably will talk a bit more about my plans.