Great that you are into music as well Hobbsy. I bet that Martin has a sweet sound. BLW, you're right, never would have guessed that your degree was in painting. Surely as in fine art and not house painting....
Bet it is interesting how that does enrichen your life in many ways though. I guess the question is why go full synthetic if it 'might' give as much protection as a blend. Easier clean up? I still have Evel Kneivel's tachometer sitting here on my desk. In 1967 I was a motorcycle mechanic at a shop that sold Yamaha, Bultaco, and Triumph. Evel came to town (Tacoma, WA) a couple of times back then and he would set up shop with us because he was riding a 650 Triumph at the time. I was a teenager and the 2-stroke mechanic, so this was all hugely exciting of course. He crashed big time on his first visit and we had to rebuild his bike. It was either a stripped down Bonneville or a TT Special; I don't remember which now. I threw his banged up tachometer in my lunch box and took it home, not thinking too much of it at the time. Unfortunately I did not get him to autograph it for me. On our racing 2-strokes we often removed the flywheel completely, just leaving the little cam that ran the points on the crankshaft instead of the whole flywheel, then used a little battery and constant loss ignition system. Rpm's were still limited by the points floating and of course it was an imperfect setup. I told my boss that ignitions of the future surely would not have points, but would simply use a pulse coming off of a magnet somehow. He thought I was a smart ass kid.....