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View Full Version : When can refinishing mandolins make your wife happy?



Darryl Wolfe
Apr-24-2012, 1:54pm
Answer: when you buy a white painted chest for $55 and it turns out like this without buying any supplies from Lowes or over the internet to do it.

Enjoy...no mando content except scrapers, maple and stains and nitro lacquer

The yellow streaks are not there, some anomoly in the camera sensor

Jim Garber
Apr-24-2012, 2:00pm
Nice sunburst, Darryl! :)

JEStanek
Apr-24-2012, 3:23pm
I could play that.

Jamie

Paul Hostetter
Apr-24-2012, 3:39pm
I saw the thread title and thought "Since when would any wife give a dang one way or the other about mandolin finishing?" Now I see! :cool:

kkmm
Apr-24-2012, 3:44pm
I should have done this to practice my finishing technique.
:))

Jim Hilburn
Apr-24-2012, 4:29pm
You know what they say about refinishing furniture on the Roadshow. Now it's only worth $27.50

Dale Ludewig
Apr-24-2012, 4:37pm
That's very nice. Quite some time spent there.....

JeffD
Apr-24-2012, 4:56pm
Wow. Very very cool.

sunburst
Apr-24-2012, 5:43pm
You know what they say about refinishing furniture on the Roadshow. Now it's only worth $27.50

:))

Darryl, so you wife likes the smell of nitro in the house? Or will it live in the garage for a while?

kkmm
Apr-24-2012, 7:33pm
You know what they say about refinishing furniture on the Roadshow. Now it's only worth $27.50
Just avoid doing this on antique pieces that you plan to sell for good money. I don't have any antique piece so that OK.
And the nitro smell is really bad (even though it smells good). I sprayed nitro lacquer in the open back yard, let it dry then bring the instrument in the garage overnight, the smell still spread out strong.

brunello97
Apr-24-2012, 9:59pm
I thought we were going to hear that you found an old F4 in the bottom drawer.

Mick

Eric Hanson
Apr-24-2012, 10:18pm
Oh yeah! Well that aint no part a nuthin'
:grin:
Nice job!

Ivan Kelsall
Apr-25-2012, 3:20am
That's a beautiful job there Darryl.The wood's come up like new, or better, it's aged since it was first made,
Ivan

John Kelly
Apr-25-2012, 3:46am
And just think how the tone will improve as the nitro settles! ;)

Tavy
Apr-25-2012, 6:25am
Beautiful!

Sound clips? ;)

Darryl Wolfe
Apr-25-2012, 9:12am
Thanks all

--Jim...it had been refinished with white paint and then stripped, so it should be worth at least the $55 I paid. :))

--Dale, actually it did not take too long..about 4 hrs readying on a Sat followed by yellow stain, a couple hrs on the stain on Sun along with some Stew Mac rattle can Nitr for sealer. I broke out the spray gun and shot about 3 coats of SW nitro on it the next Sat ~o)

--John, yes it stunk for a while, but she knows that smell. It sat in the garage for a week, then I did a little light sanding and polishing on the top surface only and took it to the spare bedroom where it was destined. :disbelief:

--KKMM, yep sprayed in the back yard..pretty obvious not an antique, probably from the 50's or 60's. It is solid maple(boards) on top and drawer fronts, solid oak drawer sides, multiple little dovetaile construction. Some of the little nylon like slides speak no earlier that though

--Ivan, I stained it lemon yellow base first and it showed no figure. The tobacco brown then flashed out the figure and looked really cool. That's the way I like to do mandos :mandosmiley:

Here are some before, during and after pics. The after is how it really looks in the room instead of out in the sunlight

PS: She did the drawer pulls. (and paid more than the chest) :grin::grin:

Dobe
Apr-25-2012, 10:33am
Beauty ! Must of been some nice sharp scrapers. Took me a couple three hours to scrape the black paint off this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVSvD8AY7CQ

I love it, but my wife hates the smell of laquer. Smells like something about to be strung up :)

kkmm
Apr-25-2012, 1:10pm
I did a little light sanding and polishing on the top surface
Hi Darryl,
Just a few questions for my own learning.
1) what do you use for light sanding ? high grit sandpaper or steel wool #000 ?
2) how do you polish the surface
The photos you posted here inspired me to do the same to some of the furnitures in my home.

Darryl Wolfe
Apr-30-2012, 9:33am
Hi Darryl,
Just a few questions for my own learning.
1) what do you use for light sanding ? high grit sandpaper or steel wool #000 ?
2) how do you polish the surface
The photos you posted here inspired me to do the same to some of the furnitures in my home.

All of the above. It depends on the quality of the item. Use cabinet scrapers unless you are trying to remove divots. A good Porter Cable random orbit sander is good for this using 220 grit or finer (but not of much use on mando's) I sprayed the nitro and did handly no polishing. I put many more coats just on the top to build up a good finish like a mando. I used the normal combo of 600 grit on a sanding block, 1200 grit, and steel wool and beige bottle Meguires products to finish it off.

Also in response to Doby, most of the white paint had been stripped before I got it, so, yes, it would have taken much longer to get into shape to stain otherwise

kkmm
May-09-2012, 5:18pm
Thanks for the "nitro finish". I did spray nitro (clear, hi gloss) on the mandolin I built, but only 3 coats as I do not want to get too thick.
I don't kwow if 3 coats are enough for me to sand with 600, 1200 and steel wool like you did.

Annette Siegel
May-09-2012, 5:48pm
I saw the thread title and thought "Since when would any wife give a dang one way or the other about mandolin finishing?" Now I see! :cool:

Hey! I take exception to this!! ;)

Annette

www.livingtreemusic.com

Annette Siegel
May-09-2012, 5:52pm
:))

Darryl, so you wife likes the smell of nitro in the house? Or will it live in the garage for a while?

From a wife's POV.....I personally like the smell of shellac better...mmmmm shellac. :)

Annette

www.livingtreemusic.com