Wednesday Oct. 19, 2011

Today I'll be shooting lacquer, so I begin the day by assembling and filling the HVLP spray gun I use with semi-gloss lacquer and setting up the finishing room.  I have a 3 foot diameter spinning table that helps quite a lot in finishing multiple items like this.  Lacquer is deadly stuff... wait... let me rephrase that: lacquer THINNER is deadly stuff.  The lacquer itself is quite harmless once all the thinner that makes it a sprayable liquid has evaporated out of it.  But the thinner itself is another matter - it is a carcinogen that can be absorbed right through your skin as well as inhaled.  If inhaled it inhibits brain function and kills off brain cells - wearing gloves and a respirator with an organic vapor cartridge is required while working with the stuff.  I also set up a fan to pull contaminated air out and open a second window to allow fresh ait to be drawn in by the fan.  This helps keep the rest of the shop free of the lacquer stink that will cause nausea and headache if I breathe the fumes.

The racks will get three full coats and a fourth coat on the shelves.  I'll scuff sand the racks with a very fine sanding sponge after the second coat just to smooth the finish.

Once they're done I'll let them sit over night.  I do this not so much to let the finish dry: it dries quickly, but to let them air out a bit before sealing them up into boxes and placing them on the shelf ready to ship out to some lucky people.

Once these are boxed and stored away I'll clean up the shop a bit and start in on our next project; a special stopper rack that is 5 tiers high and seven spots wide for a total of 35 stoppers displayed.  Why didn't I build that along with these?  Because this is so atypical that it doesn't really flow in with the steps it took to make these 3 tier racks.  this is a re-creation of a custom job we did for the fella a couple of years ago.  Technically we're not doing custom work any more, but he is a past customer, and he begged.  OK, no he didn't, I'm just an old softie.  Gonna have to lose that habit.