Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Maybe I should start a v4.0 build thread somewhere

Lies, lies, lies. Yup, that is all I tell.

It is now 12:31am on Monday morning, and I haven't primed it yet.

We had a very nice day yesterday and again today, so we decided to work in the garage and attic storage spaces. We basically still had boxes and "bins" that went into the garage when we moved in just over 2 years ago that STILL were in the way of ever getting a 2nd car into our 3 car garage.

So I was cutting 4foot x 8 foot sheets of 3/4" plywood and making a "floor" up in the attic above the garage. Then I had to haul everything up there that we wanted. It took FOREVER, and we STILL can't get a 2nd car in the garage, but are about 3 hours away from getting the last few things handled. Then the 3rd car stall needs to be organized, as it is where my large workbench is, all of my tools, the lawn mower, snow blower, 4 bicycles, etc is all at. That will wait a little longer, but we are so close that we need to just finish a little more and get the second car in there.

I DID however get 3 of the long sides and the top ready to be primed. They feel so smooth after I went from 80 grit to 120 grit. The 4th long side and bottom probably could be sanded their final time right now, but I am too tired.

With the newly "expanded" usable garage space, I am going to make my own "spray booth" with some really wide (14 foot wide) plastic for the walls, and the floor will be the really large cloth dropcloth (I know, sounds like redundant when I say "cloth" dropcloth, but some people say dropcloth and mean a sheet of plastic.). I will do my final sanding of the last side and bottom with 120 tomorrow, then dust it off with the compressor and air nozzle attachment, and then wipe with a tack cloth. Then I will set up some sawhorses and spray the top and bottom, make and eat supper while it is drying, and then put it up on end and spray the sides. Let it dry hard overnight and continue the process on Tuesday.

Your garage sound like mine.

Only better.

My garage is full of empty Axiom, Velodyne, Sony & Denon boxes plus my retired speakers, but I'm still able to get 2 cars & my motorcycle in there - but it is getting tight, ha!!

TAM

I'd tell you the best technique1 for not letting your garage turn into a hellish hybrid between storage and The Land of Forgotten and/or Abandoned Projects, but I'm not sure it would do any good in your situations.



________
1. The best technique is to avoid having a garage altogether.

Funny, my garage is full of empty Axiom speaker BOXES. Actually this is not so funny, 'cause we're moving

What!?!?

Not to be outdone by Nick, I spray painted a couple of 2X4's custom built cover for my Lilliput monitors. That would be 2" by 4" piece of metal LOL..

I like to fly simulators and purchased the Thrustmaster MFDs. Having the Lilliput 8" monitors as a "live" Multi Function Displays really makes the sim come alive.

I think I can safely save that quite a few of us are vicariously living through Nick's hard work.

hsb

Hard work is starting to suck.

I got home from work and wanted to look at my sub, and I should have sprayed it instead of rolling it. Despite what I was reading online, even a tight foam roller left a good orange peel in the primer. Ugh. I did some sanding, but too big of grit left scratches, too small was taking forever (I was using a sanding block).

So I may end up with a textured sub after all. Probably not a horrible thing since it will still be more fine than the truck bed liner stuff people put on sometimes.

Either that, or I will pick up some 240 grit or similar sanding discs for my orbital sander and sand it all that way.

So anyway, I put on the first coats of primer last night, sanded today like I said, filled in some minor spots that showed up once I had a uniform color of the primer on there (used the glazing putty and not the full Bondo), let that dry, sanded, wet sanded (just to see what would happen) with 400 grit, too much work but it was getting smoother, wiped it down, tack cloth, and then rolled more primer on.

We are heading out of town tomorrow afternoon (July 3) for an airshow and fireworks, but I *might* be able to get some more sanding done before I go. I have Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday off, so I hopefully will get this stinking thing done soon.

Here are some pictures.

Here it is with the first coat of primer on it. It isn't wavy like the picture makes it seem. The primer was drying making some spots more glossy or dull depending on how much was drying in that exact spot and it gives the illusion of waves.


And some minor touch-ups with the glazing putty:


Here is the back where the amp will mount. This is after the sanding of the glazing putty and the application of the primer again.


And here is the front after the same as above:


And lastly, the legs that are going to hold this bottom firing subwoofer off of the ground. These will be cut shorter before they get paint, but I had the primer out and they got a coat of it.


Oh, I also caulked the inside seams tonight. Should have been done a long time ago.

Lessons learned or things I would do different next time:

1) Caulk the inside before and just after adding the last side panel. This would have been a lot easier

2) Don't Bondo the entire surface, just the grooved seams and nail holes.

3) Use more clamps.

4) Use screws instead of nails (to pull the pieces tight, could possibly be solved with #3 more clamps).

5) Don't use a roller even for primer. Just suck up the cleaning process and use the HVLP sprayer or even possibly spray cans. The best roller still leaves a texture.

6) Do all cutting of MDF outside. I still have a LOT of MDF dust all over everything in the last 1/3 of the garage.

I am sure that there is more, but those are what I can think of right now.

This is the part where it's not fun anymore I realize you have to work with what you have, but spraying really is worth the trouble. 2k primer is high build and within 10 minutes of spraying you can sand it and it takes care of the imperfections without a lot of work. When I made my sub I sanded the wood to near perfection, filled minor holes and then hit it with the 2k the whole thing only took a few hours. What I found was once I had done it this way I was looking for all kinds of things to paint lol. I fixed more than a few dents in my kids cars and the primer makes you look like a pro.

Anyway keep at it, and take a break for a few days. Nothing worse than being unhappy with the final outcome and having to look at it every day.You have a really good start, keep your eye on the prize.

I picked up a 2 gun devilbis kit on ebay for $132 shipped and they have very little overspray. Worth every penny.

Richard

Yea, the sad thing is I have a HVLP 2 gun kit that I bought about 6 months ago. I think that since I had the Bondo on there, I should have skipped the BIN primer (which is designed as a sealer and primer, which would be better for plain MDF) and gone with the 2K or similar primer. The BIN stuff dries pretty quick, but usually my the time I get it rolled, I am done working on it for the night, so I just let it sit until the next day.