Don’t Give Up On Your Project.
Often times when working a Custom Live Edge Furniture project things do not always go as planned. Not to sound pessimistic but crap happens, then there is also the whole…if it was easy anyone could do it…thing. How about a personal example…lol…because I have plenty of those. A couple jobs ago we are making a Stand up Height Live Edge Computer Table with Custom Steel Base ( pictures to be added to our Gallery page here at texasironwoodfurniture.com.
The Customer picked out one of our 32inch wide X 82inch Long X 3inch thick Cottonwood slabs, that had a lot of wormholes, yet another challenge that makes for a very unique finished piece. Along with the usual challenges, filling what felt like 1,000 wormholes and working with Cottonwood, we had some unexpected difficulties.
After router planing the slab flat, sanding, shooting a pre-epoxy finish, experimenting with a new masking system, and finally filling all those holes with clear epoxy, we did the finish sanding and shot the finish. The finish was looking pretty good…until the last coat, which I was not happy with. My spray gun…which I have not liked since purchasing it a couple of years ago….wasn’t putting out the finish that I liked. Cleaning, adjusting, and tweaking my spray gun wasn’t helping. After letting it sit a couple of days the finish wasn’t any better…imagine that…so I promptly ordered a new (not inexpensive) gun. There went a few hundred I was NOT planning on spending. I would like to add a side note..typically the term “That is good enough”, is usually anything but “good enough”. Being particular and maybe a little OCD is what it takes to make something beautiful and unique.
After being unhappy with the finish, ordering a new gun, and very strategic use of curse words I took the live edge slab to a business and long time customer of mine and had them run the slab through their very large conveyor drum sander. I told them to take it back down to the wood, which they did. When it was finished I picked it up epoxyed in a few more uncovered wormholes did a little more finish sanding and shot a couple of coats of finish on the slab again. The next day we are about to do the final fine sand before shooting the finish coat, the wife walks out to look at it, points to a specific spot, and says…What is that? So naturally, a said…What! I walked over to where she was standing bent down to her level at just the right angle and sure as hell! Apparently the drum sander left some marks that I could not feel or see until it had a couple of coats of clear on it. You Have Got To Be Kidding Me!
As you can imagine, a few creative thoughts and words latter here I am with the belt sander, orbital sander and some hand sanding yet again for the 3rd dang time….uuuggghhh! In between the problems we fabricated the custom steel base and had it sandblasted and painted…which turned out pretty darn good. So I shoot the finish for the last time…finally.
Was it a lot of work? Yes, did we use 3 times as much finish material as we should have? Yes, was it exceedingly frustrating? Most definitely…but, it turned out beautiful and when we delivered and assembled it, the customer loved it. Here is the thing folks, whether it is a personal project, a piece that you are doing for a friend or family member, or a piece that you have been commissioned to build, do it right. When problems arise deal with them and most importantly Do Not Give Up. Do not concentrate on the problems, concentrate on the Finished Product. The jobs that require the most amount of effort are typically the ones that turn out the best.
