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| Re: 1pi or 2pi for surrounds? [message #69388 is a reply to message #69387] |
Thu, 08 September 2011 11:37   |
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Wayne Parham
Messages: 18787
Registered: January 2001
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Illuminati (33rd Degree) |
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Bear in mind, I'm not a cabinetmaker. Understand that first. I've had some cabinetmakers that did excellent work. Don't know what they did, but I do know it's an art and that everyone does it a little differently.
A few years ago, cancer took the cabinetmaker that had been doing my cabinets since the mid 2000s. So I started looking for a new cabinetmaker, and ended up using the same shop that does my CNC cuts for horns. I used to have one shop that did the CNC cuts, and another shop that did assembly and finish work. But now assembly is done at the same shop that does the CNC work. The downside is, they don't do any finish work.
While looking for a shop that would do finishes, I got frustrated and tried it myself. I can do tung oil, basically just laying down a coat and waiting to do it again later. Tung oil is just a waiting game. Poly is easy too, a light coat looks like nothing is on it. A heavier coat looks nice, but the trick is to do a lot of light layers. Lacquer is tricky, because whatever coat you put down lifts off the one before it. There's no chemical change when it dries, all that happens is the solvent evaporates. So when you put on another coat, the solvent makes the earlier coat flow too.
Read up on lacquers. There are a few different types. Epstein recommended nitrocellulose lacquer, and I trust his judgement. That's what set me on this path, to tell the truth. I've used both Deft and Watco Lacquer, and found them to be pretty much the same. Maybe others more experienced will have more input. I got the Watco because I knew it was good, but it's harder to find for me. The Deft lacquer is available everywhere.
I like the gloss brushing lacquer, put it on thick and sand and buff to a sheen. I use a car buffing wheel and an assortment of polishes, going from smooth, to real smooth to mirror. The trick is to get a real thick coat to start with so you can sand it down to a flat surface before polishing. This is the hard part because if you lay it on thick, it shrinks when it dries and forms "dimples", basically depressions in the lacquer that go almost all the way down to the wood. If you try to sand down to the level of the dimples, you'll end up with a thin coat. You can fill the dimples with small drops of lacquer, dripping them from a toothpick. That works best for the largest dimples, and keeps you from sanding all the way down. If you have a spray booth, you could perhaps lay multiple coats and build up the thickness without having the dimple problem. in any case, I think the real trick is the elbow grease - sand flat and then buff to shine.
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