The past couple of weeks, things have been quite busy here in the BlastFromThePast workshop.
Substantial progress has been made on the Steampunk Protostar, as well as several other rocket-building projects.
This past Saturday, the Protostar was far enough along to shoot the primary color coat on the model's main airframe. Weather conditions were ideal for outdoor spray painting, so around 9 a.m. I went out, armed with rattle cans, the Protostar, and a couple of body tube sections from other projects.
The painting operations went well and the completed parts were set outside the back garage door to begin the drying and out-gassing process.
Around noon, Mrs. BFTP and I were indoors hanging out in the living room when we started hearing loud banging noise on the wall.
We ran outside to discover two neighbor kids lobbing river rocks toward our house, some of the projectiles coming dangerously close to one of our windows.
We admonished the youngsters to 'cease and desist' with this activity, and went on to inform their parents of their actions.
It became painfully clear to me that the kids' target was not our house, but the freshly painted rockets sitting out there to dry!
They could see the models through the gaps in the privacy fence, and apparently decided it would be fun to throw rocks at them.
Fortunately, the kids were far too short to see over the fence, so the rocks were just lobbed in the hope of randomly hitting something. None of their shots hit a mark.
Things could have been far worse had they been able to see over the fence and take more careful, direct aim. Needless to say, I would have been somewhat irate if the Protostar had taken any hits. There are too many hours and too much work invested in this model to have it trashed in an instant by juvenile shenanigans.
So, lesson learned...
I will have to find another place in my back yard to put newly-painted model rockets where they can't be seen from neighboring yards and from the public sidewalk bordering one side of the property. Even six foot high privacy fences don't provide much protection.
It's a shame, really.....
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