Are you using a guide coat over the poly filler? You made me decide to buy one of those 100 BP guns, but no one online quotes prices.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6c-eaxuxRqc
Are you using a guide coat over the poly filler? You made me decide to buy one of those 100 BP guns, but no one online quotes prices.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6c-eaxuxRqc
Not so far but I have considered it.
So far most of the small parts don’t require it as they dint actually need to be 100% perfectly flat. Now the two long extrusions and then the base I will 100% use a guide coat.
To be honest foor the most part so far I can see the gloss or sheen change after the first pass with a block and paper and thus know what is and is not flat. I fully suspect on these tow long pieces after the polyester being laced down that a block sand will result in a 100% dead flat finish if I use a big block and sand with care.
Last edited by Patrick Walsh; 03-09-2019 at 11:58 AM.
Sounds good. I'm sure that Sata gun laid it on nice and smooth.
I saw guide coats used for fairing racing sailboat hulls, and foils used a long time before I ever saw it used on cars. The first time I ever did it was in the bathtub of a hotel I was staying in, on new daggerboard, and rudder, the night before the Laser Nationals sometime in the late 1970's.
Wow you have done a lot of stuff.
Can I ask how old you are or is that inappropriate. The utmost respect from me as I greatly admire those whom are capable of and are interested to do just about anything requiring the utmost care and attention to detail.
I guess that’s kinda well I don’t know the word to use other than typical coming from a anal retentive perfectionist. Well a guy that seeks anal retentive perfection and varies with regard to outcome if I’m completely honest.
I guess the age only pertains as you mention dates and I’m beginning to notice a myriad of places you have implemented your skill set.
Again and in a very non man crush but self admitted impressd kind of way how old are you, and what do you do now. Sounds like your retired but still doing the work you want to?
Yeah I just kinda say what I’m thinking, I find it much more easy.
"-Somebody didn't sand it perfectly? Paint'll hide it..."
I must have been using the wrong paint this whole time.
If only that were true, Patrick would have been done a month ago.
You have a point, conversion varnish even 20% shows everything.
Bondo for the most part and good sanding can fix anything though.
It’s funny I have noticed whe building paint grade stuff my work just is not nearly as nice as when building stain grade work. Something about paint grade, I don’t know if it’s jsut that I know “bondo and paint can fix most things” or if and I am beginning to feel that mentally when something just does not have to be perfect I’m less invested and for whatever reason don’t motivate the same to do my best. I guess what I’m saying is when it really doesn’t matter I tend to make stupid mistakes bondo can fix. You know like slipping with the trim router when trimming a face frame to another or leaving tear out on the inside edge of door and drawer oppenings or a million other little things that make me think “i suck what a hack I am”..
On the flip side when I build stain grade my work is generally 100% perfect in all regards. And it’s not just that if I make a mistake I throw the piece away and start over, I just tend to not make mistakes when I’m invested. I guess what I’m saying is I have a hard time investing myself in something I know doesn’t need to be perfect and that paint and bondo will fix. I guess it just kinda bores me and if I’m not challenged I really don’t want to do it and my work reflects it.
I try to get the guys to not change anything when doing paint, treat it as if. There's no reason to build a sub par product just because it's getting painted.
I can't claim to have built anything perfect out of wood. Excellent, but never perfect. I've never even tried
I don’t know Martin, well generally what you suggest is 100% true
I mentioned a slab style 80% gloss kitchen we just finished. Our finisher had a nightmare of a time painting it. All kinds of problems. I don’t know if he just doesn’t know the proper product or method for 80% is just tomlazy with his prep, doesn’t keep his booth or equipment clean enough, maybe all of the above.
Anyway even the pieces he got to lay down ok and free of particulate you could see the 320 “as required by the manufacturer sanding scratches from the previous coat. All I,saying is sometimes paint “like stain” doesn’t hide half asssed sloppy work.
Now pre prime paint on site, or 20-40% gloss finishes be it cv or laquer I’d say your 100% right and geneallynthat all that’s going out the door.
dint much care for that mentality “actually I loath it” but I like my job and respect the idea that my boss must make $$ for me to keep my job, and you know as much as I don’t really like doing anything less than my best I also like being employed and when it comes to painted cabinetry everything does not have to be perfect and even my work on a bad day is as good as it ever needs to to be for the work.
I’m not talking about bad glue joints, outa square boxes, warped doors, scratches in prefinished “although the prefinished thing does happen” I’m talking maybe a stretcher doesn’t align with a face frame top just so. Or flush insides to face frames are the tiny tiniest bit off. Or a blow a staple through the back of a box putting on a cabinet back. Stain grade I would never let anything like that happen as I’d be way overprotective knowing a mistake like that could be a couple lost days if not more.
Short answer: 68, in pretty good shape, 54 rhr, don't even wear glasses, and still enjoy working for a living. I have more than enough people waiting on me, with more work than I can possibly do for the rest of my life on old houses, so have stopped taking on anything else. They don't just want the work done. They only want me to do it. I don't do estimates, or deadlines. Someone asked me the other day what my schedule is, and I just laughed. Haven't really had a boss since the first three months after I graduated from college in 1973.
I'm a slave to protocol. Build it to the best of your ability every time. It's the only honest way to do it, because "I f'd up" is ownership, whereas "I just felt like being sloppy" isn't. I do my absolute best to make sure there isn't anything for the client to question. Once they start looking critically, they'll make stuff up to satisfy their need to find something wrong. Not all, but some. We screw half inch backs onto wall cabinets. They get laid out on a standard. Why? Because it looks better sitting on site prior to install. And you know what? I have walked into a house that I've worked on that was in the Parade and heard one of my contractors bragging about his psychopath cabinetmaker. I really hate people who tote the Lean Manufacturing phrase around like a shield, but the truth of it is I'm just lazy, and that's textbook "lean". I'd rather put in half a second of effort than spend 30 seconds explaining something. My standards and protocols are their to make everyone's job easier. The dude selling them, the finishers, the guy installing them, and the client so he can spend his time picking on the other trades. We don't build to a cost, we build to a standard.
I'm like you in the sense that I'm probably over skilled for what I'm doing on the bench, but my time is pulled in 50 directions at all times. selling, drawing, programming, I'm the janitor, accountant, maintenance department, groundskeeper, shop foreman, HR department, and a cabinetmaker. I'd honestly probably be more profitable, and more content if I could find someone to run the front end of things and I could just sit at my bench and get competitive with the other cabinetmakers.
Woodworking is like yoga in the sense that it's you versus you. There's no challenge in cutting up wood, the challenge is creating a discipline, honing that discipline, and maintaining it. One of my guys calls me a robot, because I do everything exactly the same way every time. Once I find something that works, I don't stray from it until it is tested and proven better.
We need another thread. Woodworking for the soul, or zen and the art of woodworking or something. and Kevin, I'm sorry for picking on you. But I'm pretty good at this stuff, and we don't build garbage that goes into garbage houses. I get a little testy when anything other than that is suggested.