Over the last few days, the frame has had 2 coats of etch primer followed by 2 coats of grey primer (quite difficult to distinguish when spraying whether you have covered the etch primer as the dried colour of the etch is the same as the wet colour of the grey primer) and 4 coats of black gloss.
Next, after a couple of days to let the solvent come out of the black gloss, I shall give it a light rub down with some 800/1000 grit W&D, then a couple of clear coats.
I will not get the fork stanchions back from re-chroming until mid-April and I think I need the bike on its wheels before I put the engine back in just so I have a stable(ish) retained frame to enable me to get the rear engine mounting lugs inside the welded in engine mounting plates.
Today's other job was to get the fork seals out of the sliders, I tried my seal puller but they were not for shifting and I was marking the top of the slider with the puller. I tried Dremeling the steel top plate on the seal but they still would not budge. I am afraid in desperation I used a hammer and a thin-bladed screwdriver and they eventually came out, fortunately, with no damage to the part of the slider the seals are pressed into. There are 2 seals to a slider each 46 x 34 x 7mm and I could not find any that size. The machined space they fit in is 20.5mm deep to the lower edge of the retaining circlip groove. I did find some seals with the correct OD and ID but they were nominally 10.5mm deep so I bought them and hope I can finesse the fitment of the retaining circlip or the depth of the seals or the position of the circlip groove by c 0.5mm. When I have bought seals in the past the depth of the actual seal is normally below the nominal size so maybe I will get away with just fitting the new ones