Painting
Abralon abrasives
Despite what varnish manufacturers say in their product literature, great furniture finishes don't come out of a can. Three coats of finish is just the starting point. After that comes rubbing out and polishing, traditionally done with pumice and rottenstone and lots of elbow grease. Abralon abrasive pads offer a shortcut.
Review: 3M Pre-Taped Masking Film
This weekend it was time to paint another room and hallway. While I was at my local paint store I spotted a product I had never used before--3M Pre-Taped Masking Film.
The lazy side of me thought, "Maybe if I put that on the baseboard I won't have to mess-around with moving the drop cloth as I progress." Of course, my lazy side won over.
Review: Wagner Power Roller 980 (Paint Quick, Cleanup Slow)
Last year when we bought our fixer-upper, we knew one thing was going to have to change right away--the peach/orange/burgundy colors on every wall and on every ceiling. Having painted the interior of a house before (sometimes two or three times - and all this in three short years), we didn't feel like slowly working our way through the house room-by-room. So, in a quest to paint our house in a short period of time, we invested in the Wagner Power Roller 980
I can tell you that we've lived in our fixer-upper for almost 7 months now, but we've only used the Wagner Power Roller for one day. You might assume that we painted the entire house in a day; however, this is not the case.
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HOWTO: Build a Silent Paint Remover
One of the first tools we came across and bought when we first bought our fixer-upper was a paint gun called the Silent Paint Remover. It's been a fantastic tool.
Since then I've seen lots of folks adopt them, including a few housebloggers I know. I've even seen a few folks try to build their own. However, until today I'd never seen someone make one as nice as this.
Even more amazing, he's got instructions and an entire gallery of examples people have sent him. Amazing! You can see them all here.
I wouldn't have the time, energy or skills to do that but kudos to those who do!
(via Make)
Review: Shur-Line Paint Edger
When we moved to Oregon we were very surprised by the “orange peel” finish on all the walls. Back home everything was “flat”. We were even more surprised to find how difficult it was to paint a straight edge along the ceiling. We couldn’t use the tape method we were used to because paint leaked underneath the edge of the tape and we couldn’t put a straight-edge along the ceiling for the same reason.
After numerous trials and tribulations, we started experimenting with paint edgers. Luckily, the first tool we used was the Shur-Line paint edger.
Craftsman Power Coat System
Perhaps a bit specialized, but Craftsman has busted out a new powder coat system for applying protective coating to metal.
It's a pretty interesting process...the powder coat goes on dry, applied electrostatically with the included application gun. Then pop whatever you've painted in to the oven, bake at 400-degrees, and your done!
The only catch? They recommend you use a non-baking oven. I suppose a dedicated toaster oven might make sense for a hobbiest looking to powder-coat your replica army trucks, but unfortunately it won't work for my 400-lbs iron radiators...oh well.
