My big project: Update

[flgoose]

It's been awhile since I posted on my big project so I taught I give you an update. On my last post I had the stand and cannopy done ecxept for the finish. Ok that is when I ran into some major problems. I stained the wood with mimwax Bombay mohagany stain. That color only comes in the type with the poly in it. Well first coat looked terrible on pine and it wasn't really the color I wanted. So I applied several coats but that made it worse. The surface was rough and by the time I covered the pine grain, it became awful dark. By now I realized this wasn't going to be fix this way so I ended up stripping everything and start over.

I decide to go with paint this time so I bought rustoleum burgundy. This time I was smart enough not to apply the stuff on the stand. I sprayed a couple of test pieces and did not like the color. It was too red so I got some black, mixed with the burgundy and finally got the color I wanted.

The weather has not been so good here for spray painting and the garage is out of the question. So I sprayed as much as I could in the basement. Another big mistake. Now everything has a coat of red dust from the overspray. this is going to take awhile to clean up. Anyway, the pieces I did spray turned out pretty good but the glossy paint made every little imperfections in the flat surfaces stand up. I'm not about to strip again so I've decided to do a technique I learned many years a go in a factory I was working at. It involves spitting droplets of paint over a base coat. The result should be a textured fingerprint proof finish that will hide all imperfections. Unfortunatelly the weather is still not good enough to do this and there is no way i'll do this in the basement. I will post pictures of this when I actually get it done.

[weez1959]

You could still post pics of the unfinished progress that way it shows all the steps, problems, changes etc. as you go along, besides we're all nosey anyways

[scubadude]

You could still post pics of the unfinished progress that way it shows all the steps, problems, changes etc. as you go along, besides we're all nosey anyways

Yeah pics would be kewl

[flgoose]

Sorry guy's, I havent had muct time to update on this part of the project.

Ok, the weather finally got good enough here and I tackled the painting of the stand. I primed everything with a coat of gray primer Ace hardware brand than I used the same rustoleum mix as the cannopy for the final color.
Since I didn't like the glossy finish on the paint, I dull it up a bit. Here is how I did it. First i sprayed the color evenly. After giving it about half hour to dry, I increased the amount of paint that came out of the gun and held the gun about 3 or so feet away from the work and moved my hands rather quickly. This way I dropped a dust of paint particle on the work which gave it a dull look to it. Since 1/2 hour drying time only dries up the very top layer, when this technique is applied, the new paint basically melts right into the other one and become one . Learn that one awhile back when I worked in a factory.

As you recall, i had to make the stand to come apart so i could get it out of my basement. That was a good thing too as I realized it wouldn't come trought the house doors either in once piece. That is why there are so many pieces laying around the yard. Of course I used what ever was around to lay them on. the down side of this is that I now have sculputured reddish grass in the back yard. Luck would have it, it stopped raining for good since i painted this so the grass just doesn't grow enouf to cut the paint off. Can't win them all i guess.