After a two-week diversion, I’m back to the chairs blog. An update overall is that it had been looking pretty grim, but work I did yesterday brought decent hope back to the situation. There’s still a real chance of public failure here, and that’s one of the things that makes this fun.
I left off the prior post with snapped DeWalt bits. It was a real bummer. High hopes for those bits, but they weren’t up to the task.
I worked really hard to get the extractor bits to bite, and while that worked for some, I had to try just drilling out the screws for other.
I found out that I didn’t yet have a full handle on how to drill out a screw successfully or these screws are extra stubborn. Either is possible.
Once I got the screws out of the way, it was time to start sanding.
I used the Makita sander I’ve had for decades. It has a cable, and that severely limits the maneuverability and range. But it’s generally effective.
I took the arms off and started going at it with 60-grit sandpaper. The paint was so thick that it was going to take some heavy duty stuff to get it off. And the initial attempt with 3M synthetic steel wool finish stripper had done any good.
The orange was coming off, and the wood underneath was looking pretty good. There was hope for this for the grain to be pulled out by a natural finish.
The thickness of the paint was chewing through my sandpaper. The Makita 1/4 sheet sander has clamps that hold the sandpaper in place, and those clams are frustrating to use for sandpaper of grit lower than 100. You might say that I should instead use a random orbiting sander. I don’t necessarily disagree but I don’t have one of those, and I don’t particularly want to stock up on sanding discs.
As I continued to sand more, I ran into things I hadn’t expected. Those things included unusual repairs, the existence of veneer, and what I believe to be a different kind of veneer.
Out of appreciation for the feet of snow in New York and the sunshine in Los Angeles, I’m now heading outside for a little bit to do some more sanding.
More next week.