Sanding, Sanding and More Sanding.
Sanding, Sanding and More Sanding.
Basically if it can be scraped and sanded, I’ve scraped and sanded it.
The two bedrooms I’ve been stripping and plastering are now slowly taking shape. I thought once I had the multiple layers of wallpaper stripped and the fireplaces bricked and plastered that it would be a downhill task to finish them off. But hey I should have remembered house development rule number one that however long you think it’ll take then generally it’ll take four times longer, or is that ten.
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As I mentioned in my last post that after stripping the paper the walls were a bit pockmarked and crazed due to paint that had come off in the peeling process. Most of the walls resembled maps of Indonesia but generally they’re sound and hard as nails and only in need of some filling. Only some filling – famous last words – I forgot how rather over-indulgent I can get on these matters. What should have been a matter of a smattering of filler got a bit over-the-top, if there was the slightest scratch I filled it and once that was filled I filled it some more. So once the process was finished – and believe me I went so to town on this it took ages – the Indonesia map resembled a snowy Indonesian satellite vista. Still it was thorough, unfortunately a bit too thorough as again I forgot another development rule in that one should not overfill with filler, what you may once have thought comprehensive becomes a lot of sanding in the long run.
My sanding took on epic proportions, I was dressed head to foot in what resembled a nuclear evacuation suit. I had googles, a respirator, hat, hood and top to toe overalls. There were points in the midst of sanding that I could barely see my hand in front of my face, the room would fill so much with the powder that upon opening a window it would look from the outside that smoke was escaping from a burning room. Dust got everywhere, it was on my work clothes, in my ears, all over my once lovely new car, and at one point my respirator wasn’t on properly so it got into me too, anyway just about everything one touched for days afterwards had a coating of powder. Still the results are great, there is still some more work to be done but the sanding is successful and the Gyproc Easi-fill filler, although dusty, is easy to sand and to get down to a lovely finish. The walls are beginning to look excellent. In fact I’d go as far to say that Easi-fill is just about best filler I’ve ever come across, it doesn’t come in a teeny tube or tub, it comes in a proper big 10kg bag and it sands really easily to a smooth finish.
It did do for my sander too. At first the trigger stuck on and after employing the unplugging and plugging technique to disable and enable it – I found this was a tad dangerous – I then evolved onto using the RCD plug red button to switch the thing off. This again wasn’t ideal and not exactly safe but after a day of my vigorous sanding it too decided to stick in the on position – not safe at all now. My sander too had developed many whines and wheezes and it would take a matter of minutes to get up to speed. So even though it was making a tremendous effort to still work it wasn’t really inspiring confidence. It did get through to the end though and once it was on its last legs I invested in a teeny detailing sander – much to my chagrin finding my Dad had one he could lend me when I’d ordered one. Still it is nice to have one’s own kit and if I do for it too then I don’t need to apologise and stump up for a new one.
My old half-sheet sander was a Ryobi, by no stretch of the imagination was it one of the elite ranges of sander, but knowing what it went through it did put up a sterling effort. The new teeny detailing one I bought – which is yet to leave its box is a Bosch and the one my Pops lent me was a Black and Decker Mouse, the mouse seems to work well but it does go somewhat buzzy in operation, I did feel that I would have white-finger within a half hour of switching it on, I would still recommend it though as it did seem to get the job done.
Anyway all the sanding is almost done, I can’t help filling dints when I find them but it really is only a little bit of filling once in a while. I really need to get a grip and know when to stop.
I’m now on to the painting….
I was looking forward to the painting while sanding – I now hate painting.
Painting is a bit erm wet.