Ya le tocaba, que ya lleva un tiempo esperando a que lo acabe. Para terminar este taburete de madera me quedaba lijarlo, pintar la estructura, teñir y barnizar la tabla del asiento y montarlo todo junto (y unos planos que tenía que poner a la venta…). En esta entrada vamos a ver como lo lijé y lo pinté. La parte de teñir y barnizar y la de montarlo todo serán otras entradas. Más que nada por no hacer una entrada muy larga con varios vídeos.
This part of painting the stool structure was actually four stages: sanding, protective primer, priming and painting, so let’s go through them one by one.
Sanding:
To sand the stool I used an orbital sander with medium grit sandpaper since the slats I buy are not usually planed and sanded (so they are cheaper). With this machine the faces are sanded without too much work although it is not convenient to use a very coarse sandpaper grain or we will have marks in the wood in the form of small circles (due to the movement that the machine makes) that we would have to remove with another sandpaper with a smaller grain before using the definitive fine sandpaper.
After using the machine I went over it by hand with a medium grit sanding block, sanded the rounded corners well with a piece of fine sandpaper and finally went over everything with a fine sanding block. These sanding blocks made of foam are very comfortable to use because they adapt to the shape of the wood and generally last a long time. If what we are going to sand is a flat surface we can use a sandpaper around a wooden block.
When we are sanding we never seem to get the piece perfect, until we get tired of it. As long as the surface is smooth and free of sanding marks is enough for me.
Protective background:
To all the furniture (I say all as if I were dedicated to this) I give a coat or two of protective antifungal and anticarcoma primer. It may not be necessary in all cases, but I think it is better to be safe than sorry. If you have ever had woodworm or moth in a piece of furniture, you will know how difficult it can be to eliminate them, even when using specialized products.
In addition, it is transmitted from one piece of furniture to another without us realizing it and when we start to see those little holes in the furniture (those that make that beautiful antique effect) from which a very fine sawdust falls, it means that we are already invaded. Then it’s time to take a syringe and start injecting anti-carcoma product into the holes. A very tedious job that is best avoided by treating the furniture during its manufacture.
Priming:
The primer is a paint that covers the pore of the wood and leaves a suitable surface for subsequent painting, or at least that’s how they sell it to us. But is it worth it? In my opinion if you want a good finish yes. After sanding it seems that everything is going to be smooth and perfect, but in reality when sanding, no matter how fine the sandpaper we use, we will always leave very small loose wood fibers. When they are lying down they are not noticeable when touched, but when they get wet they rise up and create a small sandpaper effect to the touch. In some cases (depending on the type of wood I think) wetting the surface, letting it dry and sanding it with fine sandpaper is enough. If we use pine or spruce it seems that this trick does not work well (at least it did not work for me), so the best thing to do is to give the primer and once dry give a little sanding with fine sandpaper, enough to leave the surface smooth but careful not to leave the wood without primer. Perhaps two coats of primer would be good if we see that we do not have all the wood well covered.
What if we want to varnish? We give a first coat of varnish, sand smoothly and give the final coat.
To prevent the pieces from resting on the table after priming and painting, we can make some feet with nails and pieces of newspaper. In the video you will see it better.
Painting:
For painting (and for priming and varnishing) a suitable mask must be used. Another option is to paint in a very well ventilated place, but air currents will cause dust motes to be deposited on the paint, which will spoil the final result. There are masks that fit very tightly to the face so that no air enters except through the filters. These filters are purchased according to the use we need. They come in the form of cartridges and are screwed to the sides of the mask. If you want the paint to look good, the best thing to do is to buy one of these masks to be able to paint in a place without air currents.
The video is a bit monotonous, painting and painting. Also, due to light problems (as the clouds passed I had more or less light), or perhaps because of not adjusting the camera’s white balance properly, some scenes come out darker than others. You will also notice that there is a little less resolution in the images and I am still unable to record with the camcorder. The point is to continue.
I have to admit that I am not very good at painting, and that in too many occasions the final result is a matter of chance. You will see in this video at the end that the result is quite bad. I will re-sand everything and paint more calmly (and record another video) and hopefully get a better finish. I have to learn how to paint with a spray gun.
