Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Lets plan a theater space

So far I've been lucky and havent formulated Tannerite.

An OLFA knife as a razor blade has dealt with all the squeeze out up until now. It scrapes off MDF pretty easily once hardened. There was no way to clean as I went with water and still get it all done in a day. Too much work. Since the ply edge is exposed it will have to be sanded anyway I figured. Whenever I belt sand I just cover the entire area with pencil shade, go over to remove shade, repeat, repeat etc. till smooth. It is fast and pretty consistent when levelling out uneven surfaces.

By the way the lepage "pro carpenters glue" I'm using grabs quick and starts to gum in a few minutes. Pretty nice stuff to work with. Time to mask all of the holes now before things get dusty.

All your dust are belong to us!!

What a messy weekend. You know how in The Evil Dead Ash's arm gets a chainsaw mod, well, it was a belt sander for me this weekend.

It all started out ok 6am Saturday morning. Garage was heating up. Coffee and Eggs on the go. Then I took a stroll to the speaker room to get geared up and shift stuff into the garage. WTF?!! All the work from last weekend was starting to show signs of shrinking up... Some fool forgot to bring the plywood strips inside for a week to let it dry from the humid snow melt from cars in the garage. Boo-erns!



So it looks like yet another step is added to the adventure. Wood filler and careful sanding. No biggie. The more sanding the merrier at this point. And merry it was. A couple drywall benches and an old table cloth (well, it became an old table cloth... a sore spot for a couple days. lol) and we were on our way. Here is what the before looked like after the first pass with the belt sander with 50 grit. It took 3 passes with 50 then a slow pass with 120 to get them all leveled out and ready for the orbital. Not too bad. Bad ass belt sanders don't really do slow well. Good thing I was looking for fast.



And leveled out ready for the filler and the next sanding stage.



A blessing in disguise happened as my palm sander died. I was forced to buy a new one and remembered Matt was good enough to comment earlier about what to look for in a decent one. I picked up a Dewalt random orbital with 2.6mm diameter travel (think thats good?) and it works great. It is awesome to deal with the velcro backed discs instead of ripping up Norton paper to fold into the old palm sander.

Anyway, after a solid 10 hours or so over 2 days of industrial sanding and messing around, here is how they are finally starting to take shape. Some minor wood filling and a final sand over everything should put us in good shape to get into the fun stuff. Color!

It's lookin' real purdy!

Dust dust, we like dust!

I enjoy seeing these beauties come to life.

Come on warm weather!! They need to stay in the garage on weeknights to cure finishes..... Moving them back and forth takes planning now. Adding paint wont help. Doh!

I don't post a lot in this thread because the only word that keeps coming to mind is "awesome !" and I don't like repeating myself that much. The speakers are looking great.

Belt sanders always seem like something you should put on the floor and run around the house with a remote control. I bet they would go really fast.

Going to give wood essence a call today.

I'm trying to decide between System Three Mirror Coat pour on epoxy vs their Clear Coat Top Coat products. If anyone has an opinion your thoughts would be appreciated. I'm trying to spend more on the finish product to save time in this step. I can brush on poly and sand. But that will tack on a lot of time. Doing a high gloss mirror finish on these cabinets on all surfaces but the bottom. It will be painted gloss black and left at that step. A 1.5 Gallon kit will be required for this project in either choice.

Pour on resin- 2 part product cures hard. Easy application. Perfectly flat mirror finish in one go. No sanding. Have to do one side at a time. Have to babysit edges to prevent drips from rolling over sides. Must do a thinner coat than they recommend to prevent issues. Must ensure surface is perfectly clean and level. Results are stunning from online pics. http://www.woodessence.com/MirrorCoat-P145C41.aspx

Clear coat resin- 2 part product cures hard. Brush or roll on. Water clear finish. Deep grain penetrating. Can apply multiple coats to thicken up. No sanding. Cures faster than mirror coat. Is 100% solids with crosslink hardener so it is super strong and basically sealed forever. A perfectly prepared surface is not required. Open grain ok. http://www.woodessence.com/Clear-Coat-P146C41.aspx

Both products should allow me to work indoors where it is warm\consistent and I wont have to move speakers back and forth. I can also control the dust levels better inside. They are not fumey from what I have read but Wood Essence will have to advise.

I do like WoodEssence and have never gone wrong with anything they have sold me. They give good advice.

But I make wooden charcuterie boards and use epoxy to fill in cracks and features on live edge boards. Epoxy can get rather expensive and I don't have a whole load to throw around. Especially when people are not willing to pay fare market value for my time and want dollar store from china prices.

take a look at http://plasticworld.ca/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=6_41&products_id=127

So have you used that product? There is very little info on their site so if you have can I ask a couple questions?

Does it stink when you use it? (Solent based or Indoors ok?)
Does it cure completely clear, or cloudy? At what temp?
Have you used it over water based stain or urethane paint before?

I like the idea of saving money (almost 50% vs system three) but the plastic world stuff has almost zero info. No msds or material sheet. I might end up going system three just because the product is so well reviewed and documented.

The guy at wood essence was zero help. He basically said I would just have to try it out and experiment. I guess its fair to not recommend a product for an improvised use.

Ordered System Three Clear Coat from PlasticWorld.ca. Thanks Matt.