21st February 2025
Another busy day in the garage. One dresser was completed and posted, another is well on the way, it’s going to be a busy weekend.
I made the mistake of thinking that stripping the top of another was going to be a doddle, how wrong I was.
Some of these budget pieces, mainly made from pine have a coated wood grain finish. These finishes have a base coat that is hard as granite.
I discovered this as I scraped away the two previous coats, but now I was committed.
It took me eight hours to remove this hard surface and get back to the raw pine.
The top is also a fabrication of small pieces of pine glued together to form a base, then thin strips are bonded to those to make it look like a planked top.
After endless sanding to remove the white base coating, I felt that it was ready for a stain.
As I wiped the dark stain on the surface it became obvious that I hadn’t sanded it enough.
There were large areas where the stain hadn’t soaked into the surface.
So now I had to re sand the light areas, then re stain. That took me the rest of the day, but eventually I managed to to get an even stain.
Of course this weather plays havoc with my hands, they get so dry, even wearing gloves doesn’t seem to help much. I put cream on them every night but it still feels dry. Soon I won’t need sandpaper, I’ll just rub my hand over everything.
Another Lifetime to go 