Is It Soup Yet?

I've been at this floor and stair shellacking business since the wee hours of December 13th.  Aren't I finished by now?



Well, maybe.  Not quite sure.

You see, one thing I always liked about the shellac finish on my upper staircase is the effect it gives, not so much surface-shiny-glossy, but that the wood is somehow under water, and you could reach down into the clear finish and touch the warm golden surface an inch or two below.

In October and November of 2010 it took me about ten coats of 1.5 pound cut Kusmi #1 buttonlac to achieve that, and regardless of color issues, when it came to the 2nd floor hallway floor and the main stairs down to the 1st floor, my resolution was to keep on adding coats of the untinted buttonlac until that's what I got.

Have I?

Well, I can say that watching the grain emerge more and more with each coat has been almost a poetic experience.  It's felt like each floorboard was a rough gem I was polishing, each with its own distinctive beauties, and I've been laboring to bring those beauties to light.

So has that been accomplished?

Maybe first I should say something about how I've been going about this project.  I have to laugh about all the stuff I bought eons ago to make the job easier and didn't use.  Like the lambswool pad and the three-part screw-in mop handle.  Ha.  Can you imagine me keeping any sort of control with that rig in my little L-shaped hall?  With my lousy eyesight?  Not to mention how much shellac it'd soak up and waste!  Instead, I chose to follow the advice given on a post here by Ralph the Woodworking Guy.  That is, I followed him as regards the sanding and wiping-down prep work, and especially as to the use of the 1" fine brush.  Two or three years ago I bought several good, if not luxurious, artist's brushes of various sizes just for the shellac work, and I had a  nice 1" model right at hand.

Well.  Early into the first coat (the one that should have been untinted-- sob!), I discovered what a blinking long time a 1" brush requires and how little shellac it actually carries to the surface.  Yeah, Mr. Ralph was probably working with skinny modern 2-1/4" floorboards.  Mine measure nearly 4" in breadth.  So I moved to a 2" brush of the same type and haven't looked back.

I think I'm getting better at the application, keeping the brush well-filled and making long, smooth strokes.  Ralph's recommendation is good, to do it floorboard by floorboard.  Works well in maintaining the all-essential wet edge, and the joints make a good boundary at the sides.  Though given how I filled the cracks with sliced-down strips of old disused floorboards, my floor is pretty tight and a little overlap was inevitable.  (*smiles*)  Standing up, you can't really see where the filler strips are, unless you're purposely looking for them.

I assuredly did not use the 2.5 pound cut he advises.  Yeah, I guess that'd give you good build in three coats, but I know myself and my brushing abilities.  I left enough weird streaks on the upper staircase with a 1.5 pound cut to try that.

No, this time I took to heart something said in a comment on The Prairie Box blog.  There Mr. (or Ms.) Anonymous recommended more coats in a 1-pound cut for quicker application and drying, and ultimately for a stronger, more durable floor.  Well, anybody who's successfully shellacked a floor in a house with "3 brutal cats" with claws is worth listening to.  I've also heeded his (or her) advice about the increased and increasing waiting times between coats.  For the upper stairs I only waited an hour or so between each coat.  And of course, I let myself and the four animals (brutal, with claws!) onto the finish way too soon.  Not going to make that mistake again!

Which is why it's over three weeks since I started this project, I've worked pretty steadily on it, barring four or so days at Christmas, and only today have I finished applying the sixteenth coat of shellac.

Yeah, ten-plus-six.  Sixteenth.  Hey, that would have been ten or so coats at a 1.5 pound cut, right?

But for whatever reason, I haven't yet achieved the "under water" effect I'm looking for.  I'm judging by the shellac's finish on a certain large piece of soft/open grain on one particular floorboard, and it doesn't look limpid and even with the hard grain next to it, it looks mottled and glisten-y.  What can be wrong?

Nothing, maybe, except different wood on the T&G boards than on the upper treads.  It's all yellow pine, but the treads are more close-grained.  And-- this is the kicker-- I don't have any artificial lights shining obliquely on the upper stairs, as I do in the hallway.  The fact that I couldn't get the effect I wanted was bugging me, so I took a light and shone it on the stair treads.  Yeah, in the stairwell I get some of the same glistening effect, though there I can't see it.

Which is why I'm saying Enough with sixteen coats.  On the hallway at least.  On the main stairs I really have glisten where I want limpidity, and I was thinking they were going to need four more coats, at least.

But maybe not.  I was on the Shellac.net FAQ page earlier this evening and it said something about rubbing-out.  Rubbing out?  On researching this, I find that that's what I really need to do to even out the finish and get the effect I want.  I think.  I've heard you don't want to make it too glossy, or every last (claw) scratch will show and scream.

Maybe I'll first experiment with rubbing out the main stair treads.  They look dull the way they are, whereas the overall effect in the hallway is just fine.  Very likely it won't gain me a thing to coat the main stair treads any more, and it might be counterproductive.

So can I say the shellacking on the stairs and hallway floor is done?

Maybe.  I'm not sure.  Because "everybody" says that dewaxed shellac is what you really need on top to shed water, and I have a nice can of Zinsser SealCoat I can use.  Or I can dewax some of the Kusmi.  But I recall Ron at Shellac.net telling me that the Kusmi #1 buttonlac is fine and hard for floors just as it is.  And really, once it'd had time to cure on the upper stairs it had no trouble resisting the wet snow the cable guys tracked in last January.  The water beaded right up.  And if I lay down a coat of dewaxed shellac, isn't there the likelihood that it'd just get rubbed off in the polishing process?

If I'm going to do the dewaxed, I need to get it applied tomorrow.  I definitely want to give the finish a good week or more to cure before I allow shoe and pet traffic on it, let alone think of rubbing it out.  And as it is the foam insulation people may well be coming to deal with the attic late next week.  So time is at a premium.

So is it soup yet?  Yes.  No.  Give it several more days to simmer.  But it's getting there!

Five Thirty-seconds of an Inch

The angle makes it look even worse

This past Thursday, that was the difference between having my new water softener installed and having to wait till sometime early next week.

To understand the problem, you have to be able to visualize how the Fleck 2510 valve is put together.  Starting with the basement wall, there is

1. The copper plumbing (by owner).  Two stubs stick out perpendicularly from the wall and make a permanent connection by way of male connectors with . . .
2. The Fleck stainless steel bypass valve.  This has female connectors on both the wall and room sides, and it connects with . . .
3. The meter.  It's a dome-shaped part made of heavy black plastic and equipped fore and aft with male connectors.  On each side there are stainless steel clips with hex-headed screws, four in all, that secure the connections.  On the room side, the meter fits into . . .
4. The valve body.  This is what actually screws into the top of the resin tank, and it's attached somehow to . . .
5. The capacity and timing mechanism/display.  This is a large retangular thing with a door that swings open and allows you to make your settings.

Well.  On Thursday afternoon the new plumbing finally was tight, I'd loaded the brine tank with salt and the softener tank with resin, and put the prescribed amount of water in both.  Following the instructions, I screwed the valve body (with timing mechanism and meter attached) onto the resin tank.  Then I scootched the assembly so the male connectors out the back of the meter were lined up with the female connectors of the bypass valve.

They should have aligned perfectly and allowed me to shove the valve assembly right in.  But somehow, maybe it was when Steve* spliced the riser pipe when he redid the plumbing into the bypass valve, the connectors out the back of the meter were just about 5/32" too high.  I could not make them go into the openings of the bypass valve.

So I got an idea.  Maybe if I detached the meter from the valve body and slid it free into the bypass valve, that'd give me more leverage to make the critical connection between the meter and the valve body.  So I started taking off the clips between the two.  But before I got the second one off, I had misgivings.  What if I tried to slope the bypass and the meter up to force the connection, and broke something?  Besides, look at those risers against the wall.  They go into horizontal runs up in the space between two joists.  No reason why I can't get some give there, correct?

I quickly screwed the clips between the meter and the valve body back in, and went outside to see if I could find me some muscle.

Hmm.  Next door neighbors are sometimes at home during the afternoon, but not today.  Try the people on the corner.  Good.  Their big door is open.

The only one at home was the mother of the man of the house, helping them clean after their floors were refinished.  But she was willing to come over and push up the inlet and outflow pipes for me while I manhandled the tank and valve, and it was enough.  I gave it a push and the connectors went in.  Quickly, I screwed in the other two clips,  thanked her sincerely for her help, and let her get back to her own project.

All right, all I needed to do now was retighten the wall clips I'd unscrewed to allow the risers to move . . . okay, done . . . and make sure the unit was sitting solidly and wasn't wobbly . . . and finish connecting the line to the brine tank . . .  and thread the drain hoses through the hold-down on the edge of the laundry sink.  Done and done and done.  Then finally, finally, at 1:55 last Thursday afternoon, I was ready to pull the handle on the bypass valve and have soft water for the first time since last April and maybe before.

Wait a minute.  Directions say I have to open the cold side of the laundry sink faucet first.  Okay.  All right, pull the handle, gently, gently, slowly, slowly, from Bypass the Service, and et voila! the water began to run in the inlet and out the outflow and my new Fleck 2510 40,000-grain water softener at last was in service!

A few minutes later, I went to admire it.  What's this?  A little drip of moisture between the bypass valve and the meter on the inlet side?  I took another look at the directions.  Oh!  I was supposed to open all the faucets in the house and make sure the air pressure was equalized or something.  I'd thought that wouldn't be necessary, since I'd been using all the faucets on the bypass since Wednesday morning.  Guess I was wrong.

Went up and down and ran all the faucets and flushed both johns.  Yeah, there was still air in the system.  Back down the basement and eased the handle back to Service and waited a few minutes.  Phooey, there was still a drip between the bypass and the meter.  And it actually seemed worse.

Huh.  Then I remembered that the screw hadn't gone in sweetly when I was putting the clip back on the inlet side.  I pushed the handle back to Bypass, and began to ease the screw out.  But even with it gone, the clip had to be pried off with the tip of a screwdriver.

Fffllllppppzzzztt!  Water on the wall, on the floor, on the tank, on me.  Quite a force, water pressure.  And yeah, I guess that clip was on crooked.  I got out a bucket, and a towel, wiped everything dry, and pushed the bypass valve and the meter together better.  Good.  This time the clip went on nicely, the screw screwed in straight, and I redid the one on the outflow side as well.

Handle back to Service, water flowing through again, all should be well.

A few minutes passed.  Oh, crumb!  The drip was still there between the bypass and the meter, and now I had a regular little jet squirting out between the meter and the valve body on the inlet side!  Didn't I get those clips back on straight?  Or was this because I still had air in the tank?

Put in a call to the Ohio Pure Water people.  I guess they were at lunch, because I got the answering machine.

Back down the basement.  Went through the drill again.  Unscrew the clip.  Clip is stuck.  Pry off the clip, trying to do it carefully.

Fffllllppppzzzztt!  

Wiped everything up again, firmed up the connection, and reattached the clip.  Turned the flow back on.  No more leak on the inlet side between the meter and the valve body.  But it was still dripping between the bypass and the meter on the inlet side.  If the clip was on right, it should wiggle, just a bit.  It wouldn't wiggle.  Okay, loosen it up again . . . Fffllllppppzzzztt!     Wet, wet, wet! 

A little before 3:00, Jean at Ohio Pure Water called me back. She said there's a chance the o-rings on the wall side of the meter got damaged when I pushed the connectors into the bypass valve.  No problem, she'd put a couple of new ones to go out in the mail tomorrow morning.

They'll get here by Monday at the earliest, since their office isn't in Ohio, as I'd thought, but down in Texas (the billing office and warehouse are in Ohio).

Of course I had to keep poking at it . . . I mean, was that an ooze I felt between the meter and the valve body on the outflow side?  Didn't I have that clip on straight, either?

Water's on bypass already . . .  Unscrew the clip . . . Easy, easy . . .  Fffllllppppppppzzzzzzzzzztt!

Wow!  I got that one right in the face!  The force of the blowout pushed the whole unit, valve body, timing mechanism, tank, resin, water, and all, a good inch or more away from the meter into the room!  I again removed the clip from the inlet side and tried pushing everything back together.  But I was afraid of harming this strange ring-like piece of black plastic hanging out of the outflow orifice of the valve body and pretty soon I stopped.

That should have been the end of playing with the water softener for Thursday.  But I went upstairs and when I came down again, that ring-like piece was nowhere to be found.  I looked everywhere and couldn't lay eyes on it!  I'd taken a photo when the connection first blew, and it was definitely there then, but now, forget it.

I called Jean back.  I ended up sending her a copy of the photo, labelled to show the piece I was referring to.  She said she'd show it to Charlie, tech guy and co-owner, who'd be able to tell me what it was.

Charlie didn't get back to me Thursday afternoon-- out of the office-- but I spoke to him yesterday morning.  The strange circular piece was the rim of a device that focusses the outflow or something, and I guess I'd managed to push it back into the orifice of the valve body.  Just as well that I spoke to him, because whoever put my 2510 valve together at the factory put that device in the wrong way.  It should sit with the point of the conical strainer thingy pointing out, in the direction of flow.

Well, hallelujah.  I hadn't broken anything after all!

I suppose while I'm waiting I could go ahead and redo the connection between the meter and the valve body.  And it's just possible that there's nothing wrong with the o-rings and once I get the clips all in straight I'll have a functioning water softener with no leaks.  But I'm not messing with it.  I'll wait till the new rings get here next week, and deal with it all then.

In the meantime, I'll enjoy the job the new whole-house water filter is doing.  No more yellow water!  No more chlorine stink!  No more orangey flakes floating in the bottom of my tea kettle!  When it comes down to it, adding the filter in was the reason for all this bother and hassle and wait, and I'd say it was worth it.

Mixing Me Up Some Shellac

I did not get the redux of my dark rose glaze completed this evening. Something not related to renovating the house came up today and I had to take care of it.

But the day wasn't totally wasted. I started my shellac samples for refinishing my woodwork!

Couple-three weeks ago I received three kinds of button lac, Kusmi #1, Kusmi #2, and Bysakhi, from Shellac.net. Sometime after that, I hit upon the holy grail of 190 proof denatured alcohol at Craig's Hardware just up the road in New Brighton, of all places. Sunnyside brand, at the prescribed composition of 95% ethyl (grain) alcohol to just 5% of denaturants, vs. the high-percentage methyl (wood) alcohol stuff you get most places, which can be very poisonous to use and, I am told, doesn't yield the best quality shellac. I was so screamingly pleased to find the good stuff, and so close.

I mixed up a half cup of each kind of shellac, to test them and decide what I need. Two pound cut, meaning one ounce of lac buttons each.

Oh, rats. My kitchen scale, never accurate, would not cooperate at all. Varied wildly. Wouldn't give the same measurement twice in a row.

All right, off to the mall to buy a new scale. Fortunately, the kitchen store had a good selection and none were too expensive.

To make your shellac, the lac buttons first have to be crushed up into smaller pieces. They come a good inch and a half across and look like solidified maple syrup, but I, at least, could not break them with my fingers. Tried the rubber mallet with the buttons in a plastic freezer bag. Nope, broke the bag before it broke the lac. Tried again, wrapping them in several layers of paper towel. Worked better.

With the gallon can of denatured alcohol, I discovered I'd forgotten something when I bought it-- a pour spout for the opening. After drowning my kitchen counter in undrinkable booze, ended up taking the can and the plastic graduated cylinder out to the back sidewalk where, when I slopped it, I could get away with making a mess.

I've got the shellac working in old clean Barilla spaghetti sauce jars. Nice, tight lids and ounce markings pressed into the glass. Yeah, they still smell a little of tomato, but that won't hurt-- I don't think.

As you let the alcohol dissolve the shellac button shards, you give it a stir every so often. Like every fifteen to thirty minutes. I was doing it more often than that up until the time I finished supper and came upstairs, so they're past due for an agitation now. The shellac was doing nice things to the wooden paint stick I was using. This is going to be fun. I'm looking forward to experimenting on a sample piece of my wood trim.

But as with all house renovation joy, there's the pain to get over with first. No, not completing the stairhall painting. I mean hauling the shop vac down the basement and cleaning up as much cat hair as I can, so my woodwork doesn't end up with strange textures in it. And there is a prodigious amount of cat hair in my basement. And spiderwebs, and sawdust, and lint, and random paint peelings, and--

Oh, yeah. Not looking forward to that.

Avoiding le Faux Pas on le Faux Finish

As resolved, last night I prepped a sample board with streaky, pad-applied dark green paint, and late this afternoon, I applied some of the dark rose glaze to see if the walls would need a second coat of the green. Let it dry . . . yep. No escaping it. The streaks showed through.

So back to the army, sergeant! Three and a half more hours this evening up and down the ladder, this time using a roller.

All right, the dark green base is relaid, and it's too bad I can't just use it as my wall color. No go, since the dark wall paper is still going on the bottom under the new chair rail and it'd be too somber and gloomy in my stairhall.

Besides (and it gives me no pleasure to mention this), that Behr brand flat paint chalks. Fine for a base coat for a faux finish, not so great for the wearing surface.

Next thing (after the green dries for twenty-four hours) is for me to avoid mucking up the faux effect again. More experimenting on the sample board . . . Think I need to lay on the dark rose color a little more sparingly, so more of the green shows through. And something in the faux finish brochure tells me I will get a better effect if I do a lighter application but layer as I go. (First time around, the rose blended in with the green and I was disgusted to have to do a second complete go-round with it.)

Still not totally satisfied with the size of my sponge. Too big doesn't work, as I found out last time, but the little one I used on this board makes the texture look a little mimsey.

Looks awfully pink, I know, but judging from what happened last time, I'm pretty sure that'll tone down once it's on the walls.