Second Coat of Staining

After sanding off drips and problems from the first coat, I spent another few hours finishing up the second coat.

It was even hotter this day than the last, and it was as painstaking as ever. But, the large scale staining is now over, so off to bigger and better things!

Making Biscuit Slits

The biscuit slits were actually really easy to make with this specialized too. Since the side panels are about 1 1/2 inches thick, the cutter was set up at precisely 3/4 of an inch. 

Specialized tool for creating biscuits. 

The end result was perfect, except for a few issues in the leg... After the cuts were made I connected the newly formed slits together with small football shaped pieces of wood. The connections were great, and as far as I can tell there are absolutely no errors. 

Finished Mortise Hole

The process of drilling the holes in all four legs went very smoothly. Not a single mistake on these, with each marked out before hand as to where to drill is to enter so there is a smaller margin of error compared to other methods.

Even without tools or looking to closely, one can tell that the hole for each leg is slightly off center. The tenon of the side stringer, when through the mortise, will line up so that the hole drilled into the tenon is basically centered in the leg for more stability in this connection.

There may have been no problems while drilling into the legs, but many had occurred when it was time to create the peg holes in the tenons. For example, the first two I drilled I had not pushed the tenons into place correctly, so the drilling points were wrong and ended up not pulling the tenons in, or even matching up at all. This created a huge problem, and so we ended up cutting a bit of the 1/4 inch peg the width of the tenon and gluing it into the newly made holes so that the area could be reused.

Setting Up for Drilling of the Legs

With a shorter tenon for the side stringers causes the issue of not being able to drive wedges into mortises at the ends of each. The solution: small quarter inch wooden pegs that can be driven into holes in the hole of the leg perpendicular to the entrance of the mortise. Another hole will be put 1/32nd of an inch to the further out area in the tenon to pull it tightly and erase any possibilities of instability.

This is the quarter inch drill bit that will be used to drill out the hole in both the leg and the tenon. There is scotch tape about an inch and a half up to prevent drilling through the leg as the point is to keep the 1/4 inch wooden peg in as tight as possible with few exits. 

Staining Reflection

Staining with polyurethane turned out to be a much different experience compared to simply painting one's room or using compressed air to paint small objects. It required a lot of patience and precision, especially with the legs and stringers as they are very thin and the stain should not go near the edges to prevent dripping. As all of the objects painted during the first coat session had four sides that needed to be stained, two saw-horses were set up to keep the surfaces touching to a minimum. I put a layer on the top side, then I would rotate the piece to the right and finish the next side for each to keep a consistent pattern. To dry without any errors, such as marks from a surface touching the fresh areas, there needed to be about a 2 hour interval between painting the first two sides, and the last two sides of each piece. So, of course, we went to lunch then finished up in the afternoon. After finishing each piece of wood, they need to be sanded to rid of any extra dust or drips. The plan for our next session is exactly that; sand, stain the second coat, and hope for the best.

Finishing the First Coat

The process of staining the first coat was really fun, but at the same time absolutely horrible. Everything had to be done perfectly, and I could only do two sides of each piece at a time so that it could dry before being placed on a surface. The problem with doing only two sides and then waiting for it to dry is that it takes around 2 hours to dry, and sides would tend to drip as they were perpendicular from the level ground.

The final look of the first coat is really beautiful, it turned a much darker brown than the original reddish chocolate color. It took around 6 hours give or take to finish painting all of these pieces, and that was entirely in a stuffy controlled environment which made things more uncomfortable. 

Painstaking Staining

Over the past weekend I stained, or painted, the first coat for all of the piece of the desk. The best method to stain walnut wood is to use clear satin polyeurathane and use long strokes. Since staining the finished pieces is very risky business, the process had to be very slow and precise to make sure there is no dripping and no puddles. 

The first part of the coating. I started on the easiest piece, the side panel. There aren't any mortises in the way, or tenons to avoids. It went well for the most part with minor dripping on each side. My plan for the next few pieces is to put as little substance on my brush at a time as I can to try and avoid any dripping or excess.