- After I ask a stranger if I can pet their dog and they say yes, I like to respond, "I'll keep that in mind" and walk off
- It's above my pay grade. Mongo only pawn in game of life.
Nice Job!..I enjoyed the tutorial
Just an update to this thread a little over 2 years since I refinished those garage doors, since airless has come up several times lately.
The doors still look like they did the day I finished them. There is absolutely no deterioration any kind of way. I added some weatherstripping to them, including a big thing on the bottom that keeps them up over an inch off the pavement. We had one renter that locked the doors and then tried to open one with the opener, which pulled the top rail loose, but it wasn't too much trouble to fix. That gasket thing on the bottom prevents anyone from locking it, so that should eliminate that problem.
I couldn't be more pleased that it looks like the next job on these is years off. Thanks again to everyone who responded to this thread and offered any advice.
And I'll link the thread I did about the same time on cleaning an airless rig, and I hope how to not need to waste much finish when cleaning the rig. If forget if I covered everything in it or not:
https://sawmillcreek.org/showthread....eaning+airless
Last edited by Tom M King; 04-02-2024 at 4:41 PM.
Note that the 1/4 x 25 foot hose takes 18 oz. to prime the rig, which also means if you measure running 18 oz. of water through it when you get finished you can run all that's left in the rig back into the container. There is such misunderstanding about how much finish you lose with an airless rig.
They do make a 3/16 x 25 foot hose now, but I haven't seen the need to buy one since I measured what this one takes. I'm sure it would take a lot less finish to operate the rig, but it's easy to measure since the Pump Armor has a strong blue color. Some aftermarket companies even make 3/16 x 9'.
This pump is about 30 years old now. You can find good used pumps on CL and Marketplace. I did rebuild the pump once with a Graco kit, and it was a pretty easy job. Buy the best gun currently made, and you will have a fine setup.
Last edited by Tom M King; 04-05-2024 at 8:24 AM.
General finishes Enduro recommends
Airless: 0.009”- 0.011” tip.
Those are the second two numbers on any tip number stamped on it. The first number is half the fan width at a foot. For instance the 310 I was using produces a 6" fan width and the orifice size is .010". Pressure variation allows you to give fine control to the amount of finish for a given tip size.
In that setting video I made, the 308 wasn't moving enough finish to suit me, so I moved up to the 310 and started playing with the pressure. I wear a glove on one hand so I can drag a finger through the finish on the test board to see how thick it is when it starts to look too thick. If it starts to sag from being plowed with a finger, it's too thick to not worry about getting a sag if you stumble or bump an elbow on something. This works better to me than fooling with a thickness gauge.
The varying of pressure is where the gauge is so valuable in saving time and finish lost. You can go right back to what you know works for a given finish, first time every time with no need for a test board. I'm using a Titan gauge on this old Graco pump. It comes with quick disconnects that go right between the pump and any hose I want to use.
Last edited by Tom M King; 04-05-2024 at 2:25 PM.
I was over there today with a new renter coming in, and remembered to take a picture. This is two years and three months since I started this thread about the garage doors. At first I thought there was some deterioration on the lowest molding profile, but it turned out to be just dirt. They're in fine shape and look like I just finished them. It bothers me that the floor tile in what used to be the garage on this house comes out under the door, but doing anything about that is Way down the to-do list. I didn't build this building/house.
I even remembered to turn the phone horizontal so the pic would be oriented correctly here.
edited to add: Looking at the picture today and the two year old one, it looks like the wood color underneath has evened out a lot. I think that's correct. I do remember there was more of a variation in the different pieces of wood when I first did them. I have no idea why though, but they do look better now than they did to start with.
Last edited by Tom M King; 05-08-2024 at 6:00 PM.
Tom, this has been such a long thread that I'm not sure what product you actually used. Was it EM-2000? The doors sure look good. Are they exposed to sun, direct rain, etc?
John
EM8000 as first coats/primer and Totalboat Halcyon for topcoats. I had to look back through the thread to remember. There's probably a picture of the side of the sprayer box with the tip size and pressure written in magic marker. This has been a long thread with a good number of looks every day, so I thought I'd update it two years plus on.
The doors face East under a big soffit and wide door jambs with only about an hour of direct Sun in the mornings with a lot of help from tree leaves after the leaves come out. I think the Sun is low enough when the leaves are off the trees that they don't get a lot then either.
I went over it earlier in the thread, and you even helped me decide back then. Priorities were as long lasting as possible while being the easiest to redo possible. The original stuff was very hard for several reasons to sand and get off down to bare wood. You know how conversion varnish sands away nicely, so that was the reason for the first coats, but I wanted something more durable for the surface. It would probably be different if there wasn't so much surface area and not easy to get down to bare wood shaped surfaces. Consider this is six times the surface area of a normal 3 foot entry door.
Thanks Tom. Clearly I had forgotten the whole story, and was too lazy to reread it all. Thanks for the summary. Two years in and the doors still look great. I think you've found a winning combination.
John