It's good to see that even the best case builders don't get everything right on first try. Gives a good message to us who are still learning that it's ok to make mistakes. Great work Waynio! I will keep on following!
Not much forward motion in the past few weeks? I've haven't been around here that much lately except to pop in now and then. I was wondering what the status of Lean and Green is. I just read through this whole thread. Interesting idea with the dying metal lacquer. I've never tried metal lacquer. Interesting idea if it works.
There are better modders than me but thanks Evenge. I know not like me to go AWOL on a project, mix of being stressed & this new finishing method not being so easy but I know it's doable, just needs a good bit of practice on applying the lacquer, thanks voigts, good to hear from you, every time I enter modding room I see LAG sat there saying finish me NOW, will do soon. Sort of. Thanks dipzy. My get up & go got up & gone somewhere without me so had to get well enough for it to find it's way back to me. So much sanding needed doing, everything needed stripping & the bicarbonate soda doesn't do that much & is more like a facial scrub & manually wet sanding was just a bit too much effort giving me popeye arms & making me brain dead really so ordered a belt sander for quicker work of surface sanding & can do nice straight brushing with it, still needs a light careful rubbing with satinising pads else it feels grippy so if you wiped it with a cloth it would leave a load of bits all over it. Bits & few panels in I lost grip of this small piece & it went straight to a gear out of sight, had to take it all apart to get it out, 10 minutes use & had to fix it lol. Used grub screws & spacers to mount these in the drill press because they are too small to handle another way, held 240 grit paper to it to clean them up a bit, they were quite scuffed. Ran out of needed dyes for custom brown so tried some plain colours green, blue, red & I placed a strip of black vinyl across them all & put them on the window cill to test out if this fades in sunlight, 3 weeks & they remained un-faded. New bits including prepping bits, new hacksaw & 500g tubs of black & coffee brown dye, decided to go for the big tubs for far better long term value. Clamps for the belt sander. All sanded & brushed, just needs wiping down with white spirit & then clearing any dust particles off with a tack cloth before I lacquer it all up, painter's pyramids I'll add a dot of blue tack on the tips for some grip on the aluminium, no more messing up work surfaces & no more panels sticking to work surfaces. Made a model of the room I mod in & designed complex worktop units but ended up changing it to quick to make basic worktops, will be so much better less cramped, this is how it currently is & this is without the camera on tripod which has a big foot print, with that I had so little space so was really awkward to mod in. This is what I want to change it to by using breakfast bar legs with a 3 meter kitchen worktop. Got 10 breakfast bar legs & installed 4 to the offcut I've been using as a makeshift worktop, just that alone gave some nice extra space, got the 3 meter top today so I'll be happily modding on again in a cleaner more spacious organised room probably tomorrow, still need another bin or 2, a shop vac wouldn't go a miss neither. All sanded raw, brushed, cleaned up & lacquered. Sadly it all went wrong again, close but not close enough to pass QC plus colour is completely wrong, this is more brass or gold than brown, I know this method is doable, just have to apply the lacquer in a better way, not sure what's up with the colour though, possibly nowhere near enough dye in the water or it's just a really weak dye mix compared to a custom mix from primaries. Screw heads turned out great again though, at least those are consistent. And this 1 panel piece which turned out near perfect so it seams going against the brush finish made it work right rather than going with the brush finish diection, really this 1 piece turned out fully covered to my surprise so I'll have to try doing a more detailed piece like this. So need to try again, keep getting close to the finish line on this & it pulls far away but here's another shot of the front layer piece which I didn't dye because of the poor results. This time I'll focus on 1 detailed piece that seems to have the worst finish which I would say is the side panel in this shot, just until I have it solved before I dedicate to lacquering the rest. First I'll try applying it going against the brush finish since it worked pretty good for the mini side panel, if that fails then I'll try air brushing, if that fails I'll try spray gun, if all that fails then I'll revert back to raw metals or spray paint & write off lacqodising as a semi pipe dream because it works excellent for colouring screw heads, at least that is of big benefit to modders. Dunking jig is essential for doing the dyeing process, too iffy blindly placing parts in so if I can make the lacquering part work well, it will be made up of 3mm sheet alu, 5mm spacers doted all over the disc which allow for secure mounting of pieces, 200mm threaded bar with nuts on both ends & 13mm tube around them & a handle on top, the big holes will be good for keeping the dye mixed by lifting up & down, I'll make 2 or 3 of these so I can so a run with minimal hassle, I thought of multiple levels but then thought of the mess that could make in the kitchen while trying to get parts out lol. This update lacks some awesome for the amount of time I've been out so have some shots of the nice shiny new control setup I bought, corsair k70 keyboard & razer taipan mouse, love how easy this board is to clean & the media functions are perfect, brilliant good looking functioning product, pricey but worth it for something my fingers dance about on regular. Razer taipan & corsair mm600 mat, I actually prefer my old razer lachesis, was perfect for my claw grip style but this is a good one, I'd just prefer the body of a lachesis with the tech of the taipan, scratch build mouse case possibly. Still aim to complete this project ASAP so I can get back onto lean & green, both projects should have been completed ages ago & it's purely due to making this lacqodising work why it's taken so ridiculously long, not just doing bits but saving & waiting for deliveries every time I think I have everything I need, prep work I have figured but lacquer application is the bit I need to perfect if I'm to use this method on projects. More soon from the upgraded room which will be more like a workshop.
You don't don't do things the easy way that's for sure, I'm liking the colour and you have god like patience. Can't wait to see more of the new workshop, I'll be thieving ideas that's for sure
For painting, Hit it in any direction you need to to get the lacquer on, then lightly brush over it in the grain direction. Oil-based paints go on better if you are FAST. Work the bubbles out in the grain brushing pass. -Good to see movement.
It's gold lol was supposed to be brown so the lighter shades will be like these, I'll have to stick to mixing primary colours for best results I think. Bought breakfast bar legs off ebay £18 for 2 & a cheap kitchen worktop, fast cheap way to make a big decent workspace, less than £100, would have put it together today but my dad suggested screwing a support to the wall so I only have to use legs for the front & so it secures to the wall, I'll get that done tomorrow & post a pic of the result. Want to make a scroll saw table with casters so it can be put out the way when not using it, takes a lot of space really. Sounds an excellent tip, I'll get straight to the spray gun skipping the air brush, thanks cheaps & yeah had to show sign of life.
At another little speed bump. I underestimated the amount of cleaning & sorting needed doing in the room, it's a huge task, it's progressing though, doing it in stages because it's that big a task lol.
Thanks Phyonics. At last, the play room is enhanced woo hooooo, should be a lot more enjoyable now. Still need extra electric sockets but I'll continue with extensions. Got a ton of sanding to do again for a 3rd try on the lacqodising, this time I'll sand everything raw again but only focus on doing the lacquering on 1 detail panel to make sure I get the technique right with minimal work if it fails again, was a huge mistake not doing it this way.
Still confident I'll get it figured & been learning quite a bit from errors. Mancave is awesome now, so nice with it not being like an obstacle course. Made this rustic weathered look while stripping the lacquer off, looked kind of good with the brush finish so thought I'd show to see what anyone else thinks about it to make sure it's not just me who thinks it has potential, try to imagine it in any colour though, this coffee brown is more like gold especially outside in sunlight, I'll be sticking to using bright primary colours for making custom colours, more potent & more accurate. Waiting for a new lacquer brush & sanding the rest of these panels will be a quick job, still a tiny bit of wire work that can't be done until I have coloured the parts but once the wire work is done it's time to assemble & do a quick photo shoot. Next attempt I'll just fully mask the other sides of panels, apply the lacquer heavily with a big brush & then quickly do 1 brush stroke to take excess off, do the same for other side, trim away the excess & quickly & carefully do the internal & external edges, should work good.
Those parts would have been wanged accross the room by now if it was me, I can't believe how many times you've tried this. Your workshop is missing an important item ..... The page 3 calender
Oh Andy how very couth. Surely a petrolhead like yourself knows that there ain't no calendar bit a pirelli calendar. That weathered effect looks awesome. You could even lacquer with different colours and tones on the same piece to give it a real dirty look.
I get distracted enough, maybe that's the secret to having no nasty workshop injuries. Coming up to 3rd try, that's not bad IF I have the right theory on making it work. Thanks for the feedback, wasn't sure if it was just me who thought it had potential.
Hahahah, yeah but I was thinking about poor Waynios modded thumb, and Wayne would get nothing done with a Pirelli Calendar on the wall
But I will have to get some posters up. Lacqodising development continues, it's coming along & is taking so long. Fully masked, heavy coat applied with 50mm brush, 20mm brush run along all of it in 1 direction to brush excess off & run bubbles out, dry, remove tape & cut the internal pools away. Latest lacqodising result, it's a bit rustic but it's the best result so far on a panel with cut-outs, it has full coverage, the darkest bits are where the lacquer was thicker which is really hard to avoid on cut-outs. I lacquered both sides but the underside didn't catch any colour so when doing both sides first side would be prepped, lacquered & dyed then do the same to the other side so it needs 2 runs, I'd need to hang them which would need loads more dye or a custom dyeing tank to do it in 1 run. Made the custom brown with 1 yellow, 1 red & 4 black amounting to about 30 grams of dye which is what I calculated from the HSB in sketchup, took 40 minutes @ 80c to reach this depth, I gave cold dyeing a try & nothing happened so it definitely needs the heat. Good to get full coverage though, still some kinks to perfect or accept the rustic look.