We’re back with the second (and last) installment of “Jim, out of his depth.” In case you missed it, and care, here’s part 1: Sequential art (or, how I spent the week after Thanksgiving).
So, on with the picture show!
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This led me to start with a couple coats of tung oil, thinned down with citrus-based solvent. That produced a very dull gloss, just barely more reflective than what you saw in the previous pictures. Also, I’d clearly not burnished enough since I was still picking up paint dust during the second go-round. Too late to fix that, but no worries! Following the advice of our instructor Luke, I planned to bring up the shine a bit in the final coat. My plan was to mix the tung+citrus with satin Osmo Polyx — a “blend of vegetable oils (sunflower, soybean and thistle) and waxes (carnauba and candelilla) combined with a small amount of low-odor solvent.” It’s sustainable and has minimal environmental impact.
Good plan, but while his recipe for a finishing coat had all the same basic ingredients and proportions (1/3 oil, 1/3 thinner, 1/3 poly), Luke at Sam Beauford suggested different types of each from what I used.
Now, I’m not a complete dope: I’d done some samples with various mixtures on some scrap oak, and it seemed to work, but between those sticks and the chair something went awry.
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Fortunately, we planned to go to the Detroit Institute of the Arts to see the Van Gogh exhibit that day — and better still do so with some friends — so I had to leave the thing alone for a while. Couldn’t even look at it! I won’t pretend that at times that day I didn’t brood about ruining the damn chair, though, so I was no doubt occasionally bad, or at least distracted, company.
(The exhibit was great. Lunch was delicious. The friends are lovely.)
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