Well it's all been a bit quiet in here lately but work has been ongoing in the background.
It became clear that the woodworking needed was beyond my basic skills so I initially tried getting quotes to have the work done professionally. I have no idea why, but I can only presume that joiners and carpenters have enough work that they can pick and choose. I asked 3 seperate people for prices and a week later I was still sat waiting. A few more e-mails and phone calls and still nothing. So I pretty much gave up on that as a bad job.
I've now taken the plunge and bought a donor cab from Manny. The big sticking point for me wasn't actually the cost of getting it back to Lincolnshire but more the fact that none of his photos showed the rear of the cabinet. He's subsequently fixed up the back of the cabinet and posted photos; I have no idea what state it was in before but it was clearly nowhere near as bad as mine and the sides were fully in tact. So hopefully that will land here in the next week or so, although to be fair i'm away with work again so no huge rush.
I've also been experimenting with paints because it became clear that to spray my R&B blue both inside and out using rattle cans was going to be extremely expensive - at £10-£12 per can I estimated i'd be looking at close to £200. Of course the problem is that it was only an estimate and I couldn't even buy a single can to test the coverage because there could be subtle differences in the colour between batches. Of course the cost-effective way to do it would be to get the paint sprayed using a compressor but that also has it's own costs associated with it (either buying the equipment to do it, hiring it - which is almost as expensive as buying, or finding someone who could do it for me and paying them).
It was suggested to me that in fact I could try using a regular emulsion - it's something which i'd never even considered and I was always led to believe that painting wood with emulsion was a bad idea. I don't know if the fact that the cabinet has been primed first would make a difference and given that I now have a spare back box I figured it might just be worth a go. After all if it looked crap or I decided against it then I could either sand it back and repaint or I could simply use the spare that i've acquired. Since doing the painting i've read more online and for some reason it seems to be considered a big no-no but i'm interested to know why that is before going any further. I have to say that part of me feels that it's wrong; and given i'm about to stick £200+ worth of decals on top I want to make sure i'm absolutely happy with it before I go any further.
Here's how it looks - I have to say that the finish looks quite nice but the paint still feels a little tacky and I believe it could take a week or two before that fully disappears. I'm worried about the durability of the paint if i'm honest and once the decals are on then there's no going back. (And yes, it's VERY blue, of course once the stuff is all back in place and the backglass is in place it won't look quite so 'full on')
The paint used was a silk emulsion and it was applied in very very thin layers using a foam roller (and a fine brush for areas where the roller wouldn't go). Each layer was left until fully dry (typically 1-1.5 hours) before another was applied and every few coats i'd sand it back lightly before starting again. I lost count of how many coats it's had but i'd say at least 8 seperate applications. The biggest pain in the **** from an application point of view is simply that it's very time consuming. I'd presume spraying would be quicker.
So come on folks, explain to me the error of my ways and how I shouldn't go this route. It feels wrong to me and the general concensus online seems to agree. I want to make sure this R&B is as nice as possible so getting this bit is fundamental to me...... ;-)
It became clear that the woodworking needed was beyond my basic skills so I initially tried getting quotes to have the work done professionally. I have no idea why, but I can only presume that joiners and carpenters have enough work that they can pick and choose. I asked 3 seperate people for prices and a week later I was still sat waiting. A few more e-mails and phone calls and still nothing. So I pretty much gave up on that as a bad job.
I've now taken the plunge and bought a donor cab from Manny. The big sticking point for me wasn't actually the cost of getting it back to Lincolnshire but more the fact that none of his photos showed the rear of the cabinet. He's subsequently fixed up the back of the cabinet and posted photos; I have no idea what state it was in before but it was clearly nowhere near as bad as mine and the sides were fully in tact. So hopefully that will land here in the next week or so, although to be fair i'm away with work again so no huge rush.
I've also been experimenting with paints because it became clear that to spray my R&B blue both inside and out using rattle cans was going to be extremely expensive - at £10-£12 per can I estimated i'd be looking at close to £200. Of course the problem is that it was only an estimate and I couldn't even buy a single can to test the coverage because there could be subtle differences in the colour between batches. Of course the cost-effective way to do it would be to get the paint sprayed using a compressor but that also has it's own costs associated with it (either buying the equipment to do it, hiring it - which is almost as expensive as buying, or finding someone who could do it for me and paying them).
It was suggested to me that in fact I could try using a regular emulsion - it's something which i'd never even considered and I was always led to believe that painting wood with emulsion was a bad idea. I don't know if the fact that the cabinet has been primed first would make a difference and given that I now have a spare back box I figured it might just be worth a go. After all if it looked crap or I decided against it then I could either sand it back and repaint or I could simply use the spare that i've acquired. Since doing the painting i've read more online and for some reason it seems to be considered a big no-no but i'm interested to know why that is before going any further. I have to say that part of me feels that it's wrong; and given i'm about to stick £200+ worth of decals on top I want to make sure i'm absolutely happy with it before I go any further.
Here's how it looks - I have to say that the finish looks quite nice but the paint still feels a little tacky and I believe it could take a week or two before that fully disappears. I'm worried about the durability of the paint if i'm honest and once the decals are on then there's no going back. (And yes, it's VERY blue, of course once the stuff is all back in place and the backglass is in place it won't look quite so 'full on')
The paint used was a silk emulsion and it was applied in very very thin layers using a foam roller (and a fine brush for areas where the roller wouldn't go). Each layer was left until fully dry (typically 1-1.5 hours) before another was applied and every few coats i'd sand it back lightly before starting again. I lost count of how many coats it's had but i'd say at least 8 seperate applications. The biggest pain in the **** from an application point of view is simply that it's very time consuming. I'd presume spraying would be quicker.
So come on folks, explain to me the error of my ways and how I shouldn't go this route. It feels wrong to me and the general concensus online seems to agree. I want to make sure this R&B is as nice as possible so getting this bit is fundamental to me...... ;-)
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