I shot a tiny bit of video during the project… I shared one of these already, but maybe you’d like to see the others.
I’d like to find a way to hold the phone steady and keep the button mashed down, while using both my hands to do something else… That would require a second person, methinks.
I enlisted Hana to act as the grip, and she did a fabulous job. I’m just have a few control issues when it comes to art-making.
With just less than a week until Ramadan, Allah enabled me to finish with the doors.
As in episode v, I started by lightly sanding, then wiping down the doors, before adding a third and final coat of varnish.
From a distance, they look good. Alhamdulillah.
But don’t look too close… I left some drips in there in a few spots…
And let’s wrap this up with a mention of a few of things I used: Spar Urethane (and enough leftover to varnish the doors once a year for 8-10 years…); a nice dark stain; some natural mineral spirits; a handy-dandy step ladder; some shop towels; a couple of high quality brushes; some empty paint cans (one for stripper, pictured in an earlier episode; another for mineral spirits/cleaning brushes); sandpaper (in 60, 80, 120, 180, and 220 grit—suck it up and use actual paper and sweat… the sandpaper sponge things look like they’d work ok, but in practice they’re not great, and for a door like this, a mechanical sander is not really practical); and everybody’s favorite blue painter’s tape.
And one more thing: clean your brushes. Tap out as much mineral spirits as possible, then wring into a towel you don’t care much about. Then coat with dishwashing soap and massage under hot water. Wring into a clean towel and hang to try.
Warning(s): stripper, mineral spirits, stain, and urethane varnish are volatile and not good to breath in. Use with proper ventilation and keep children away as much as possible. Also, with your oil-soaked rags: hang them to dry thoroughly, don’t leave them in a pile in the corner, or all folded up somewhere—they can purportedly combust spontaneously.
Thanks for tuning in!
And last, but not least, a couple of comments on the Foxy/Robusta combo I used throughout this project.
It’s one of my favorites: pleasant border, interesting tones, good color. But I just noticed something: there are hairs, or threads or something in the lens or film filter… you can see them clearly in many of the door shots. I noticed them when preparing these posts, and thought there was something in the iPhone lens for a bit. So watch out for these, should you use this combo.
Tea Time (2). Testing the new “Intensity Control(tm)” slider in Cinamatic. This is the Bennet filter at 8 (of 9). Filters appear to start out at level 7, so you can push them up a bit if you want (and as I’ve done here).
The intensity slider is part of a new update (v. 1.1) that adds some fun ‘pro’ features that I’ll try out soon enough, InshaAllah. The Pro upgrade/add-on (free for current users; available for 99¢ to new users) includes saturation, brightness, and contrast sliders; the ability to add sound from your music library; and the ability to rearrange clips and to knit clips together to create videos longer than 15 seconds. You can also now import video; I’m not sure if this is part of v. 1.1 or part of the pro upgrade.
All in all, fun times.
After a week of curing the stain, I ended up with another day off due to overwork, and so dug into the final stage(s): the Varnishing.
Friday morning (June 20), after Fajr and some time with the Quran, I cleaned the doors with mineral spirits (again; not pictured), and slapped on a coat of varnish.
Saturday morning, ditto.
July 14 marked a turning point… we were finally going to start getting somewhere.
First, as it had been a week since the doors had seen any action, I Dyson-ed, then wiped down the doors with mineral spirits (and none of that synthetic stuff: I had learned my lesson), and then it was time to get serious:
A friend and I bought matching shirts one day out together, it may have been 1999 or 2000. I got a bit of paint on mine in 2004 or so, and it has become my de-facto let’s-get-messy shirt.
Anyway.
Staining is easy: paint on, wipe off; paint on, wipe off. The hardest part was getting in all the cracks.
So after two disappointing days with the stripper (aren’t they all?), and after consultation with Alex,*I returned to the home improvement center yet again, and picked up something I had wanted since I was a painting student: a corner cat power sander.
It was only mildly effective, and only on the large flat areas, which account for a decent chunk of the doors, but the those aren’t the parts I was particularly worried about…
I thought of returning to the store for a dremel, but seeing as Hana was already tiring of the mess—not to mention I was feeling a bit punchy too—I went with plan B (should’ve been plan A, likely: Allahu Alaam): sandpaper and sweat.
*who advised me of the first rule of Man Code (paraphrasing): Any excuse to buy a new tool is a good excuse to buy a new tool
Stay tuned! There’s lots more to come! Continue reading “the doors”
