Midlag Crisis
- Thread starter waynio
- Start date
Thanks kaku, figured I should include a positive in the update.
At last, the play room is enhanced woo hooooo, should be a lot more enjoyable now.
Still need extra electric sockets but I'll continue with extensions.
Got a ton of sanding to do again for a 3rd try on the lacqodising, this time I'll sand everything raw again but only focus on doing the lacquering on 1 detail panel to make sure I get the technique right with minimal work if it fails again, was a huge mistake not doing it this way.
Made this rustic weathered look while stripping the lacquer off, looked kind of good with the brush finish so thought I'd show to see what anyone else thinks about it to make sure it's not just me who thinks it has potential, try to imagine it in any colour though, this coffee brown is more like gold especially outside in sunlight, I'll be sticking to using bright primary colours for making custom colours, more potent & more accurate.
Waiting for a new lacquer brush & sanding the rest of these panels will be a quick job, still a tiny bit of wire work that can't be done until I have coloured the parts but once the wire work is done it's time to assemble & do a quick photo shoot.
Next attempt I'll just fully mask the other sides of panels, apply the lacquer heavily with a big brush & then quickly do 1 brush stroke to take excess off, do the same for other side, trim away the excess & quickly & carefully do the internal & external edges, should work good.
Waiting for a new lacquer brush & sanding the rest of these panels will be a quick job, still a tiny bit of wire work that can't be done until I have coloured the parts but once the wire work is done it's time to assemble & do a quick photo shoot.
Next attempt I'll just fully mask the other sides of panels, apply the lacquer heavily with a big brush & then quickly do 1 brush stroke to take excess off, do the same for other side, trim away the excess & quickly & carefully do the internal & external edges, should work good.
Associate
Waynio, I have just read through all of this and the Stealthlow project log - your attention to detail is awesome. Keep it up mate
Soldato
That weathered look is great, i'd leave it like that, gives it a DOOM vibe
Soldato
I quite like that effect, and considering how much trouble you've had with the full lacquering, if it were me I'd go for the rust. You could make it a Steampunk build.
Associate
I agree. Its not often you see that sort of effect. And with the right lighting it can look very good.
Keep up the good work.
Thanks Chris, hope you enjoyed the log.
That weathered look is great, i'd leave it like that, gives it a DOOM vibe
I was surprised how it didn't look half bad.Seems comfirmed as an OK look.
Thanks chilla, its a good fallback effect if the main colour doesn't work out, I want to do a steampunk project some day but a fully functional take on it rather than sticking parts on.
Thanks jonny.
Lacqodising development continues, it's coming along & is taking so long.
Fully masked, heavy coat applied with 50mm brush, 20mm brush run along all of it in 1 direction to brush excess off & run bubbles out, dry, remove tape & cut the internal pools away.
Latest lacqodising result, it's a bit rustic but it's the best result so far on a panel with cut-outs, it has full coverage, the darkest bits are where the lacquer was thicker which is really hard to avoid on cut-outs.
I lacquered both sides but the underside didn't catch any colour so when doing both sides first side would be prepped, lacquered & dyed then do the same to the other side so it needs 2 runs, I'd need to hang them which would need loads more dye or a custom dyeing tank to do it in 1 run.
Made the custom brown with 1 yellow, 1 red & 4 black amounting to about 30 grams of dye which is what I calculated from the HSB in sketchup, took 40 minutes @ 80c to reach this depth, I gave cold dyeing a try & nothing happened so it definitely needs the heat.
Good to get full coverage though, still some kinks to perfect or accept the rustic look.
I quite like the weathered look in many projects but that was never really an intention with this project, just found it looked the part for that, got the intended look really coming along now though.
Good progress with lacqodising.
Made a part dunking dye mixing piece last night but it needs shrinking a little bit more to fit in a bit easier, all I do is mount a 10mm spacer to a part & anchor it into a hole to help it stay in place & to nicely mix the dye just plunge it up & down a few times now & then, multifunction dunking jig.
Tried using a spray gun for the first time after watching some basic guides & how to clean the gun on youtube to apply the lacquer today because it was still on my to try options & I am really glad I tried it before lacquering anymore parts, it will definitely be my method of choice for lacqodising now, really should have tried it sooner, better late than never though.
Waffle & excuses.
The 4 dots if you can see them are where I didn't properly deal with bubbles when I should have, the flip paint look is due to the new ultra bright 5500k bulb I was using but switched to a 6500k lower powered one which shows the true colour anyone will see in normal lighting conditions, nice thing about spraying it on I can now do multiple coats a heck of a lot easier.
Future project will be far nicer than this since all these parts have been re finished at least 3 times already which made it harder & harder to get the surfaces to a nice state, surface finish really shows everything underneath the lacquer just like anodising so it really needs to be good for it to look good.
Trouble with dyeing parts flat is only the top side takes dye so it's pointless lacquering both sides before dyeing unless you have a dyeing tank to hang parts in on there sides, I tried dyeing the other side but for reasons I have no idea about it wouldn't take the dye so it seems to need 2 complete runs if doing both sides when dyeing parts flat.
Now I really do have the lacqodising figured nicely I should be speeding along from now, I believe the lacqodising took up 99% of the effort in this project lol.
Updates should be more progressive now.
Thanks silk.
Just got a nice tall floor lamp I can easily move around the workshop & put the 5500k light bulb in, here are some shots I just got with it, the other shots were far to intensely bright so I guess this finish will do after all, just requires good surface prep & some spray gun practice, if only I tried the spray gun months ago.
Thanks Biffa, was so nice to see how well it covered this time.
Sorry for the hold up, started another log but I'm keeping it a timed exclusive to bit-tech.
http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=262068
I'll lacqodise this ASAP though, on a mission to get current projects clear before 2014.
I want your tools, mate
Really good job.
So do I
Thanks biuro74
It advances.
Lacqodised the same dark brown, internal pieces 15 minute dunks, external 60 minutes, front layers 15, 25, 35, 45 minute dunks, all at 80c.
Can get the wire work done on this now & get it put to use only about 7 months late lol.
To make accurate lighter browns it's not a simple matter of shorter dunks, need to start off on the lightest tone making it darker by adding dye to do it right but this will do, at least I'll get Lean & Green right, I was also mixing wrong amounts, all the different dyes have different mass so this is really wrong, I'll make custom scoops to make mixing a lot easier.
Surface finish is quite bad on this one due to applying it prematurely a few times & having to strip it all off each time.
Associate
- Joined
- 18 Aug 2013
- Posts
- 193
the time put anskill put into this build....wow amazing work man
Soldato
- Joined
- 17 Jun 2012
- Posts
- 5,951
Is all that slotting and cutting freehand?! or am I missing something, if it is then that is some serious skill, chapeau.
Thanks mate.
Yes, I just stopped showing all the step by step process with so much CNC in modding making showing how I make it all a bit pointless so mostly been showing end of session pictures.
Not so good news though.
This project is a no go, the motherboard is dead, powers up for a few seconds & then shuts back down, tried alternative memory & PSU removing everything else including the battery to narrow down the problem but same no worky effect, the lazy git just wants to sleep forever.
At least I got lacqodising out of this, nice but empty case is useless but the technique is useful for my future projects, I am in a slight state of depression from it though so I'm taking a break but I will do final photo shoot of useless empty case, ugh.
Photo shoots will be incoming over the next couple of days.