Ok, I have not quite been sitting idle these last couple of weeks/months.
This is a long story, so get yourself comfortable.
First of all, apologies – no pics. Yes, you can stone me, whip me, tar & feather, keel-haul, lock me in the stocks or whatever.
My little Samsung takes pics which can only be sent by SMS. It does not have a USB port!
I have been working at son & dil’s house.
Sanding down metal door frames, undercoating and then 2 top coats.
Paint used:-
Plascon Universal Undercoat with a bit of tint thrown in to get closer to the top coat colour. (Oil based)
Plascon Broken White topcoat enamel (oil based)
It is touch dry in about 4 hours and can get second coat in just under 24 hours.
There are 12 of them plus the built in cupboard frames in the passage & bed2.
In the in-between times I stripped and sanded and painted the passage cupboard doors. They got 3 top coats, using a small roller, before I was satisfied. They had to be loaded at home and offloaded from the bakkie on my own without being knocked or damaged. Then also hung working on my own. The big doors are bulky and heavy.
I am actually embarrassed when I look back and see how long these took!
My excuse – banned from workshop for 5 months while the left eye healed and had to avoid dust.
I also painted this half, bedroom side, of the passage walls. 3 Coats.
Also in the in-between times I sanded, repaired, sprayed and hung 4 room doors, as well as the 6 cupboard doors from bed 2.
These doors were all sprayed with a clear matt PU.
The 4 room doors also had new locks and handles fitted. A bit of rasping to fit the new lock. Nice easy-peasy job. (rasp – hand tool!)
The first lot of cupboard doors that I did a couple of months ago, I used the compressor to spray on the PU. Nice kit but a ballache with the hoses and cleaning. (the compressor is kept at their house)
I have for some time wanted something smaller for spraying that I could use at home. Surfed around for HVLP and then visited all the tool suppliers.
The selection here is quite pathetic and ended up buying this one.
https://www.bosch-do-it.com/ae/en/diy/t ... 199927.jsp
Nice, compact, easy to use and clean.
The coat being applied is ‘thicker’ than with the compressor. I found 3 coats fine compared to 6 with the compressor.
Process:- first coat + 800 grit rub, second coat + 800 grit rub, final coat + 1000 grit rub and a once over with a soft cloth.
I did all the spraying outside in the sun so drying time was very quick.
The hinges had been sanded and painted, while I was sanding the door, and fitted at home before being transported back to their house.
Final adjustments were done with the door hanging. Surprising how well the very thin, <1mm cardboard from biscuit boxes work as spacers between the door and hinge.
What is extremely important to do, is mark which hinge is top or bottom.
My really biggest problem was handling the doors on my own being bulky and heavy.
From workshop onto bakkie and off again onto spray supports not too bad.
However carrying the finished door into the house requires navigating 2 steps, the patio, through the front door, into the passage, around a corner, down the passage and then into the room for hanging.
My greatest nightmare was maybe tripping and falling with the door. See dining room door!
THE Dining room door!
This had been butchered into place about 40 years ago. The door had to be forced close catching on the frame and striker plate.
Before I took the door off, major exercise getting those pins out, I marked with masking tape the areas that needed to be trimmed on the edges.
There was lots of repair work as the veneer panels had come loose on the edges from the force-closing of the door.
Door went back for spraying, all fine so far. Carried door in to hang, all fine so far.
On the hinge edge in the middle of the door I needed to take off about 1.5mm over about 300mm.
Not a problem, door off, out to garage to sand off the section using the belt sander. (nice piece of equipment) Then apply some stain and spray the edge.
All going well according to plan.
Pick the door up and head for the house.
Wham! O BIG SH1T! I tripped on the bottom stair, the door went flat down on the tiles, hinges at the bottom. And 90kg deadweight on top.
The clumsy, stupid, half-wit, a-hole, incompetent, useless, fifth rate idiot lifted himself up and checked for damage. No blood, so nothing serious.
Lifted the door up and a quick visual check saw no major damage to the face of the door.
Hung the door. Beautiful fit, open and close like a dream. Lock and handles fitted looks smart.
Pack up and push off home.
It should be noted that no bad language was used except ‘o sh1t’ as dil is in the hosue.
Back the next day to do some more painting. Checked this SOB door. The veneer panels had come loose in a few places. My decision – just leave it and deal with it next year when some of the other room doors are repaired.
Somewhere in-between all this I helped son strip out ceilings and cornices in the second half of the passage and install new ceiling boards (Gypsum boards) The new cornices are poly-styrene which he did on his own.
The walls are washed down with sugar soap (son), holes plugged with polyfilla (me), old sliding door rails removed (me) all ready for the painting contractor.
The painting contractor, (that’s me) starts very early, 06:45
There was one door ready for spraying, so I did that first, about 2.5hours work.
Then the painting started.
The walls are a rough plaster finish, which means no quick roll-over with the roller. Small sections are done forcing the roller over the plaster to ensure all the little valleys are covered.
Packed up at 15:00 absolutely knackered. No beer at home to ease the pain.
The second and third coats went a lot quicker and easier.
Just for information and to bear in mind I had a deadline – B-day 3rd November.
What was left on my project list to do before 3 November:-
Back door (metal frame already done)
Front door (wooden frame still to be done)
Both doors are stable doors in need of replacement, but that is unbudgeted cash flow, and can be replaced in a couple of years. Decision made to refurbish them.
Back door first, then the kitchen area is complete.
It is solid wood, probably Meranti. Easier to handle each half although very heavy.
I had taken my trestles to their house and set up a work station in the garage using one of the old doors for a top.
Bottom half – sanding, scraping with Stanley blade, plugging holes, more sanding, and more sanding.
The previous owners must have had some large dogs years ago as the outside showed lots of gouge marks from their claws.
I decided to not sand out the marks but rather clean them up and smooth them out a bit.
Then the top half, similar process.
The lock/handle was one of these round things where you push and turn the little thing on the inside to lock the door. The hole into the door side is then very small with all the mechanism being in the handle.
Definitely to be replaced by a barrel type lock and new handles.
I took the new lock and marked out with masking tape where it fitted and where new holes had to be drilled for the key and handle.
Nice and easy drawing on the masking tape.
This part of the story now becomes extremely embarrassing and I apologise profusely to a number of our esteem members.
I had to resort to using some hand chisels and some woody-hammer thing to make the hole for the new lock.
These were all still wrapped up in bubble wrap from when we moved in May 2015.
Fortunately ‘someone’
had sharpened the chisels years ago and they sliced through the wood like butter.
Another easy-peasy job, looks good, works good. Very chuffed with myself.
The inside of the doors I sprayed with the PU used on the other doors. The outside requires some UV resistant PU applied by brush.
Tried a new UV PU product. Bad mistake, will get to that later.
I applied the first coat with the doors hanging, lot easier as the PU takes 24 hours to cure.
Went back the next day. The first coat was still tacky. Very disappointed.
So I took a rag with turps and rubbed the doors down, still some tackyness. A rag with thinners removed some more of the crap.
This was Wednesday 1st November, dil in hospital, baby arriving 3 days early!!! (the best laid plans of mice and men …)
The back door will now have to wait a few weeks, as well as the front door.
I packed up all my tools and painting equipment and vacated the site. (This was all just dumped in our garage and I still need to clean the sanders and pack everything away.)
All my painting drop sheets are still at their house and need to be washed before they can be packed away.
Can’t subject new grandson to all the dust I create and the smell of the paint and PU.
The new UV PU. It looks like it might work ok on a raw wood sanded surface, but certainly not on what I was dealing with.
The spray on PU on the inside of the doors, no issues at all.
I have some Wooddoc in the garage for outside use and might just try it on a small area first.
Just in case someone is wondering what the old fart does in his spare time, well he is reviewing a set of annual financial statements and the details that make up the statements.
Cheers
Phil