You might have seen a photo of this pretty object a couple of weeks ago?
Well, distance (and beer) do miracles for good appearance.
Close ups show a different story.
Naturally, this had to be re-done.
Since the original finish was that beautiful Japanese textured vinyl (think Micro Seiki - all of them) that is very wood-lookalike, but extremely sensitive and completely and utterly non fixable, the next option was to re-veneer.
To lift off the top plate, TT base has to be taken apart completely, to the very last screw, which also included careful dissolving or breaking of off some 30 year old contact glue joins...
I already had Rosewood veneer from the previous job and fortunately colour and grain were a spot-on match for the original look.
Working with Rosewood even as planked material is not for the faint hearted because grain "curls" in all directions making the material extremely brittle - it chips like nobody's business.
Working with Rosewood veneer... great if you're a masochists. Or stubborn.
First wetting (grain filling) coat.
First full sand-down...
...which defines the vicious cycle that carried on for 10 days:
- Woodock10 coat in the afternoon, some coats by brush, some using tissue paper
- sand down in the afternoon of the following day and recoat
... repeat until you're happy
Definition of happiness?
Here:
Like a complete ... I forgot to take a photo of the lid as it came in. Simply put - it wasn't see-through, at all.
Plus there were some seriously deep gauges but since the material is 4, even 5mm at places, no problem sanding it down. I started with 220 grit, I kid you not.
The result... better than many brand new ones if I may say so.
These photos are a reminder of what it looked like before - that corner ding was not possible to remove. It will be filled as soon as I find the suitable epoxy that cures really hard as glass. So far, all universal epoxies I tried were meeh - plasticky-soft to the fingernail push.
And here's it is doing it's business
Loved doing it, but ... it is taxing. And after days and days of repeating the same steps one usually loses the patience and makes a mistake which always results in one step forward, two steps back - so you learn quickly to take a deep breath and do things the way they must be done.
Thanks for looking
:2thumbs:
Well, distance (and beer) do miracles for good appearance.
Close ups show a different story.
Naturally, this had to be re-done.
Since the original finish was that beautiful Japanese textured vinyl (think Micro Seiki - all of them) that is very wood-lookalike, but extremely sensitive and completely and utterly non fixable, the next option was to re-veneer.
To lift off the top plate, TT base has to be taken apart completely, to the very last screw, which also included careful dissolving or breaking of off some 30 year old contact glue joins...
I already had Rosewood veneer from the previous job and fortunately colour and grain were a spot-on match for the original look.
Working with Rosewood even as planked material is not for the faint hearted because grain "curls" in all directions making the material extremely brittle - it chips like nobody's business.
Working with Rosewood veneer... great if you're a masochists. Or stubborn.
First wetting (grain filling) coat.
First full sand-down...
...which defines the vicious cycle that carried on for 10 days:
- Woodock10 coat in the afternoon, some coats by brush, some using tissue paper
- sand down in the afternoon of the following day and recoat
... repeat until you're happy
Definition of happiness?
Here:
Like a complete ... I forgot to take a photo of the lid as it came in. Simply put - it wasn't see-through, at all.
Plus there were some seriously deep gauges but since the material is 4, even 5mm at places, no problem sanding it down. I started with 220 grit, I kid you not.
The result... better than many brand new ones if I may say so.
These photos are a reminder of what it looked like before - that corner ding was not possible to remove. It will be filled as soon as I find the suitable epoxy that cures really hard as glass. So far, all universal epoxies I tried were meeh - plasticky-soft to the fingernail push.
And here's it is doing it's business
Loved doing it, but ... it is taxing. And after days and days of repeating the same steps one usually loses the patience and makes a mistake which always results in one step forward, two steps back - so you learn quickly to take a deep breath and do things the way they must be done.
Thanks for looking
:2thumbs:
