Modern flat line finishing

  Several of the shops I have worked at have gone to some form of flat line finishing. We had a Makor profile sander and finish line with an automated loader in Nevada, a Cefla reciprocating flat line sprayer in Florida and now in MA we have a Superfici Bravo Robot. This is by far the best flat line I have used due to the 5th gun which will perfectly spray edges on just about any shaped object.

 The thing about using these machines is that it makes you come up with different finish schedules in order to use the machine at its fullest capacity. We spray stains through our machine (we were told you can't) and it works fantastic.  One trick I have found when trying to match a wiped stain when spraying is to use a dye stain that mixes with acetone (we use Keystone Nerosol but Sherwin Williams S61 works as well) and then add a proportion of water to the mix to force the stain deeper into the pores. Usually 3 parts acetone to 1 part water but it depends on the look.

We also have a Cyclomix so the shorter pot life of the 2K urethanes we spray are not an issue. We also do high gloss pigmented panels. (primer and paint) At the end of the line we have a forced air drying oven which really helps with production.

Tranquility at Lake Tahoe Part 3

 Here are the last of the pictures, There are several articles online about the house and the sale. Here is an interesting article that describes the property better than I can.

Library and Billiard Room

Tranquility at Lake Tahoe Part 2

This is a view of the main house and the pool house (lower left) 

with Lake Tahoe in the background

This is a view of the back of the house.Large window is the Great Room.

The underground tunnel leads from the Wine Room to the Pool House.

Tranquility at Lake Tahoe

One of the houses I worked on when I lived in Nevada recently sold for $48M, less than half the original asking price! While we were working on the house we couldn't take any pictures or disclose who the house belonged to. Since it sold recently and the owners name is all over the internet as well as pictures from Realtors I thought I would post them on my blog as well. The Entry Staircase was a duplicate of the one from the Titanic and the library modeled after the main New York Library. This project took our company 3 years to complete and we did all the interior and exterior work.

Main Entry Staircase

Spiral Staircase

The Kitchen. The beams were pine box beams 

hand planed and finished to look 100 years old.

I'll add more in my next post.

Injecting Glue in repairs

Using a hypodermic needle to inject glue in small repairs is a very important technique but it can be difficult to find quality needles for this use. I found these Glue Injectors from Stewart MacDonald and they are great.

Architectural Ornaments

Finally have all 18 sets made and they have been attached, primed and ready to ship to the job site.

Pinned and glued using urethane glue.

Primed and caulked, ready to ship to job site where they will be painted after installation.

Color Mixing Tools

I match a LOT of stain colors and come up with finish schedules all the time for large production and custom jobs. Any tools I can find to help me I am all over. UTC colors are notoriously messy to get from the can. These mix lid/dispensers from Fillon are one of my favorites. They work awesome for cans of stain also. No mess from either quart or gallon cans and they make using my gram scale extremely easy. Rockler sells the Mixing Mate which looks like the same product to me and costs more.

You can buy the automated shelf which has an explosion proof motor to keep your tinting colors mixed or they have a convenient handle to mix manually. I just bought a dozen and they were only $8.50 each.