I'm Finally Doing It

Finally, finally, after months and years of reading and researching, talking and blogging, ordering and mixing, tinting and testing, I'm finally doing it.  I'm finally laying shellac onto a surface here at the Sow's Ear.

As you might have guessed, I'm starting at the top, with the treads of the stairs to the 3rd floor.  The treads are going on in and 1.5 pound cut of Kusmi #1 button lac dissolved in 195 proof denatured alcohol and tinted with mahogany aniline dye.   I'm not staining or dyeing the wood first, but putting the tone down in layers, so I can get the color I want.

I can't find the sample I did a few weeks ago, but I know it took six coats to get the right color.  It's all right, because freshly-mixed shellac dries quickly (you can recoat in forty minutes to an hour), and more coats diluted to a thinner consistency makes for a more durable finish.  Actually, I'm adding a nitch of isopropyl alcohol to retard drying so it won't get tacky before I get the brush marks blended in.

Here's today's progress.  Please note that my camera renders the color entirely too reddish, no matter how I adjust it.

11:35 AM:  The stairs to the Study stripped, sanded, dusted, and ready to be finished.

12:11 PM:  All taped to keep the mahogany-toned shellac off the risers.  Those'll be done in a warm walnut to like what was on them before.

(Wait a minute.  Almost  all taped.  Missed a spot.)

12:16 PM:  The top treads, without finish, and

12:27 PM:  The same, with one coat.

12:45 PM:  Making progress.

3:39 PM:  Two coats on.


6:27 PM:  After a light 220-grit sanding, ready for coat No. 3

7:10 PM:  Three coats applied.

8:43 PM:  Ready for No. 4

9:19 PM:  Four coats completed.  I'm running low on shellac, so I'll need to dissolve the rest of the buttons I have before I can finish this stage of the job.

And finally,

9:29 PM:  Huw the boikitteh, thoroughly disgusted with me for enleashing all those funny smells and for not allowing him to go up to the 3rd floor study, all day.

What I've Been Up To

A pictorial tour of the last couple-three weeks at the Sow's Ear:

Late on Tuesday, October 5th:  Flaws, holes, dings, and dents filled with Zar filler tinted with mahogany aniline dye dissolved in denatured alcohol.

Wednesday the 6th:  Nothing accomplished on the stairs.  Made quince jelly instead.

Saturday the 9th:  The five top stairs sanded down with 80-grit sandpaper.

Baby gate put at bottom of the stairs to keep the dog and his claw marks off the bare wood.

Sunday the 10th, approximately 7:00 AM:  The boy cat knocks the metal gate on the floor.  Replaced it with a wooden one.

Monday, 11 October:  One more tread and part of another medium-sanded.

Meant to do more that day, but I was watching my friend Hannah's* daughter Letty*, who was off school for Columbus Day.  We went to the riverside park and picked up windfall crabapples.  Twice.

Tuesday the 12th:  No stair work: made quince cheese.

Wednesday the 13th:  Medium-sanded the rest of the treads. 

Used the travel iron and a wet washcloth to raise the dents where I knocked the mouse sander and the canister vac down the stairs.

Dotted in some more tinted wood filler where I'd missed some spots.  Went a little nutty and used the rest of it on the hallway floor.

Raked and bagged leaves in the back yard while the filler was drying.

Thursday the 14th:  Fine sanded the stairs. 

Steamed the bottom tread again where I lost control of the mouse sander and let it plow into the wood. 

Decided I couldn't stand the stray nail tip some previous owner rammed through a riser from the closet below, and figured out a way to cut it off and countersink it.

Discovered I'd missed some holes and dings I should have refilled and sanded.  Too bad.  Any more material comes off these stairs, they'll have no intregity left whatsoever.

Since then, I've raked more leaves, gone to my second wedding of the month, gathered up the drop cloths and cleaned up a prodigious amount of sanding dust, substitute-taught a few times, gotten a sore throat, spent this past Sunday in bed, and, yesterday, had my final chemo session.  What I've been up to today, Tuesday the 26th, can wait for a separate post.

A Discreet DIY-Related B1tch-and-Moan

Something I didn't mention in my last post:

The other day, when I was using the mouse sander to groom the ratty nosings on the stair treads to the 3rd floor, I was doing my usual thing and taking pictures of the progress whenever I got a tread done.

Well, after I'd been working awhile I picked up my digital camera and was fiddling around with the controls, setting the focus to close-up, adjusting the light color temperature, that sort of thing.  And darned if my right hand wasn't shaking and I could hardly push the right buttons at all!

Weird, weird, weird.  I really hadn't been sanding that long, either.

I shook off the cramp or whatever it was and got back to work.  And comforted myself with the thought that it couldn't be the peripheral neuropathy that sometimes appears as a side effect to the chemo drugs I'm taking.  That would be a pins-and-needles sensation in the fingertips, and that's not what this sudden trembling seemed to be.  Besides, I got over it and things seemed fine.

But by the next day . . .  Well, I can't accurately describe the course of things; I'd rather keep detailed records of holes filled than of chemo side-effect symptoms experienced.  (Does that mean I'm a normal person-- or that I'm not sufficiently attentive to my care?  Whatever.)  It's just that while the shakiness has not recurred, by Friday my right fingertips were definitely tingly, sausagey-feeling, or occasionally painful, and as of yesterday the left ones seem to be joining in.

Damn and blast!  I am sooooooo talented!  I can't throw up like normal chemo patients do, I gotta get peripheral neuropathy.  Which damn well better not go any further and better not be permanent.

But here's the deal:  this evening at church a friend who's a nurse was making noises to the effect that running a sander can exacerbate the problem.  Now, the next thing on the DIY agenda is filling the holes in the stair treads.  But after that, the sander has got to be run.  Those steps have to be fine sanded before they can be refinished, and I'm the person who has to do it.  There is no money to hire a pro, even if I trusted anyone else to do the job I want.

And leaving the stairs and hall floor unfinished isn't an option, either.  In this economy nobody can afford to have a house torn up any longer than necessary, especially not me. 

I know the motto on my blog banner says "I'll make a silk purse out of this house if it kills me."  I don't plan on fulfilling that resolution, not really.  But under the circumstances, it really looks like I'm going to have to--  Well, let's just say I hope the new Bosch sander won't send up too much vibration when I'm taking down the wood filler.  In any case, I've got to try.

Inching Along

This is another of those boring just-for-the-record posts.

I didn't get called in to teach this morning, so I took advantage of the time to clean up and restore the bullnoses on the treads of the stairway to the 3rd floor.  Primarily used the mouse sander as my sculpting tool, at first with 60-grit sandpaper.  But then I ran out of precut sheets and I was too lazy to go downstairs and cut more.  So I used the 80-grit and it did just as well, maybe better.

Once I got the worst of the dirt and irregularities off with the electric sander, I went over the nosings again with a 40-grit 3M sanding sponge, one of those parallelogram-shaped affairs that lets you get into tight corners.  I discovered to my great relief that sanding down the surfaces removed a lot of the bad irregularities at the nosings.  It'd looked before like I was going to have to do a lot of fiddly filling, especially on the bottommost tread.  But no, the splintery bits are pretty much all gone.

Filling the remaining holes and dings with Zar wood filler would be the next thing, now that I've gone over the sanded surfaces with dena-tured alcohol.  But there was that hammer dent I'd been meaning to steam out for ages and never did till today.  Yeah, the technique with the wet washcloth and the travel iron (less chance of burning bare wood) raised it right up just as reported.  In fact, it's now higher than the wood around it, like a big black mole, since it's now as high as the original surface.  That's fine, it'll get sanded down. 

But not till tomorrow or whenever, since all that water has to dry.

I suppose I could fill every other tread today except that one.  Maybe when I'm sure the alcohol is dry.

Back to the Salt Mines

I mean, back to sanding stair treads.

The new sander came a week or so ago, but I'd decided I'd had enough of correspondence and receipts and paperwork all piled helter-skelter since last January on every surface in my 3rd floor study.  And all over the bedroom, since my operation last April.  I simply could not bear the thought of redraping my study with plastic dropcloths with that muddle of papers hiding under them.  What if I needed some letter or bill?  I'm supposed to go searching, with sanding dust all over the sheeting covering the paper mess?  No, before I could go back to sanding it all had to be sorted and put into the file drawers where it belonged. 
Never mind the number of days I spent doing (or not doing) that.  It's done, and if I need a particular piece of paper, it's in its file.  Under the newly-draped plastic.

Since I no longer had that excuse not to-- I mean, since that task was out of the way and I could now sand, last night (Friday) I took up the new Bosch half-sheet orbital sander and got back to it.

And remembered why I hated the job.

Why, oh why, does it take three steady hours with 40-grit paper to take ninety years worth of crud off one blinking stair tread?  And that was one that had been started before!  And was clear of shellac. Back and forth and back and forth and back and forth . . .  Damn!  if I weren't Protestant I'd think I was doing penance for something. 

But the thing I feel most guilty about is not having this sanding done a lot sooner, which would make the penance be what I was supposed to be doing anyway.

Today and this evening (Saturday) I finished rough-sanding the three bottom treads.  But 10:30 PM found me across at the neighbors' watching the fireworks the next borough over was shooting off for their 75th anniversary celebration.  Got to talking about the work I was doing on the stairs and all, and the husband said, "Do you have a belt sander?"  "Yes, I do.  But I'm not using it for this.  I can't keep up with it, it gets away from me, and it leaves gouges."  "Oh," he says, "you just have to hold it down to keep it in one place.  It'll take that stuff off in no time."

Well.  When the fireworks were over and I got back to work, I gave it a good thought about getting out the belt sander, regardless.  The bottom tread has some deep scratches in it, made I have no idea how.  Don't think a dog did it, they're with the grain.  A kid running some wheeled toy across it?  I don't know.  Maybe the belt sander would be the best thing.

On the other hand, maybe the belt sander would take so much wood off I wouldn't have any tread left.  So I finished up with the half-sheet sander after all.

(Which, I have discovered, you have to be careful to get the lid firmly back onto the dust-catching cartridge after you've emptied it, or the dust will escape and go everywhere.)

By a little after midnight all the treads of the stairway to the 3rd floor had reached Good Enough stage.  Next thing is to clean up (and in some cases, restore) the bullnose on them.  Once that's done, I'll top up the unsandable pits and gouges with wood filler.

Which considering my schedule, may not be till Wednesday.  We'll see.

Then I get to break out the 80-grit paper and, oh joy, start sanding again.

(Somebody just beat me with sticks, will ya?  It'll make a welcome change.)

Not on the Agenda

This morning around 6:35 AM I go down the basement for a paper sack to pack my lunch in.

I come back up the stairs without it.

Why?  Oh, just a little matter of water most of the way across the basement floor. 

I've seen this before, about six years ago.  Last time my water heater went out and needed to be replaced. 

This morning?  Blame the early hour, blame the chemo, blame my lousy eyesight, blame the fact that I'm all dressed to go substitute teach (for the first time since my surgery last April), but the mind goes into freeze mode.  Can I, might I do something to stabilize things and go ahead and go in? 

Revoke my DIY card, but I can't think of what all I should do.  What about the owner's manual?  It's up in the Appliance file, isn't it?  Yes, but can I focus well enough to understand what it could tell me about the subject?  I doubt it.

Wait a minute, wait a minute . . .  There's always the Internet.  I run upstairs, get online, and Google in "water heater leaking." ( It actually comes up as "water heating leaking," but no matter). And the first thing on the first site I open tells me the water could be coming from the temperature- pressure (TP) relief valve.  And if it is the TP relief valve, I, the homeowner, need to do something about it Right Away.  Because, the site told me, if too much pressure builds up, my tank could blow up.

My tank could blow up?????  What?  Really!?  I don't even know where my pressure relief valve is!  It's probably someplace on the bottom of the tank and here I am in my skirt and stockings and good shoes!  I'll never find it! 

Back down the basement.  I still need the lunch bag-- if I'm going in. 

Gosh, what a lot of water on the floor.  I pick up some trim that needs stripping to get it out of the way. Think, Kate, think! Could I leave this till 3:30 this afternoon?  Could I, should I?

But what if this was only part of the water that's in the tank, and it keeps getting worse?  Water on the loose Is Not Your House's Friend.

But I really need the money I'd be making today.

But what if the water keeps coming and coming?

I take a deep breath and call the school and beg off.

I still need to do something.  Oh!  My next-door neighbor is an air-conditioning repairman.  Maybe he knows something about plumbing.  They're up: I can see them moving around in their kitchen.  I pick up the phone: "Hi, it's me.  My water heater is leaking all over.  What do I need to turn off?"  The water valves?  Check.  Gas valve? Check.  Kthxbye.

The water on the floor looks like it's getting worse.  Slowly.

OK, notify the home warranty people.  Website alleges my contract doesn't cover broken water heaters.  Oh really?  That's not what my printed contract says.  I try the phone again.  And awhile later, again.  And awhile later, again.  I keep getting shifted into phone-transfer limbo.  Finally, a little before 8:00, I get a live person. The guy is helpful and puts in my service order.  He tells me to go ahead and drain the heater. OK.

Hour or so later, I get a call from the designated plumber.  He can't get to me till tomorrow.  Too many appointments today and he has to get me a new unit.

Oh, crumb.  Looks like I could have gone in to work today anyway.

Around noon, the plumber calls again.  He's had a couple of cancellations and can make it today after all, in about 45 minutes.

And he does.  And by 3:00 o'clock or so I have a new Rheem water heater, with copper pipes instead of those flexible steel kinds.  Mine were leaking anyway.  The old tank was leaking all over.  The old tank is gone.

The plumber turned out to be the same guy AHS sent out to tackle my bathroom sink plumbing a year or so ago.  That was nice.  And it kept the dog happy.

Now it's much later.  The basement floor is slowly drying out and the towels I used to mop up the floor are in the washing machine.  In hot water.

Nevertheless, all this was not on today's agenda.

Dust in the Wind

Last Saturday my friend Frieda* called and said, "I've got us a sander!"

Wow!  That was fast.  The afternoon before, we'd been on the phone and she hadn't yet had the chance to take the Craftsman half-sheet sander I'd busted to Sears to see if it could be fixed.  And doubted she could until this morning. Could they possibly have put it right in that short a time?

Not at all.  The minimum fee for them even to look at the thing was $69, with no guarantee repair the cost wouldn't be higher.  So, Frieda announced, she'd bought a factory reconditioned model for less than that and she was bringing it right over for me to use!

And she did, and it's lovely.  It even has a dust collection bag on it.

What it doesn't have is a template to punch holes in the sandpaper so the dust will swoop up through those cunning little holes in the pad of the sander and into the dust collection bag.  Nor does it have a hose adapter so I can connect it straight to my shop vac.

And the dust in my third floor study was horrible already.  The dropcloths over the file cabinets, tables, and bookcases were skimmed over with an orangish film.  In some places, an opaque orangish film.  Dust was on the books and on the papers in the file trays.  Orangey pine dust coated the rug.  It had to be controlled.  So I thanked Frieda and told her that before I use this new sander I'd see if I could obtain the right dust collection accessories for it.  Then when I give it back to her and her husband, the accessories will go with it, my contribution.

I spent a lot of time online Saturday, trying to find those accessories.  Finding nothing, I called the local Sears.  They couldn't help me there, but got me to the correct website.  After a certain amount of Internet rabbit chasing, I located a pdf shop manual for the sander, that linked to an exploded diagram, that linked to a list of parts you could order from.  Hmm.  Here's the vacuum attachment, where's a replacement punch template?

Got on with Sears Craftsman Live Chat.  Agent One passed me to Agent Two.  She didn't know, but maybe Agent No. Three would.  Oops, No. Three isn't connecting!  But here's the number of the parts people, call them.  They were already closed for the day.  All right, I could try on Tuesday.

Actually, I tried on Wednesday.  I called the number.  No, they don't handle that sort of thing, try this other number.  Called Number No. 2.  No, they only handle hand tools.  But here's another number.  Called Number No. 3.  Agent looks, and says, No, you can't get a replacement paper punch template for the Craftsman sanders.  It only comes with new ones, sorry.  But maybe I could call my local Sears store and ask them.  No, I said emphatically.  That's where I started on Saturday.

So it looks like I won't be able to rig this reconditioned sander for dust collection, and, as I've said, the dust so far has been terrible.  It's been bad enough upstairs on the third floor: it'll be intolerable as I work my way down.  I feel embarrassed thinking that Frieda spent her money for this thing, but I don't think I'll be able to use it.   I need something cleaner.

And something should be coming, in a few days.  Yeah, I dented my budget further and ordered the Bosch sander I was looking at on Amazon.com.  With shop vac attachments.  To make things more audacious, I did it on the computer at the public library this past Wednesday night.  (My Internet connection was down this past week and the wireless router still isn't working correctly).  Yes, I remembered to look for the security code in the URL.  And I made sure to log out! 

Anyway, maybe it'll come by Monday or Tuesday and I can get back to work.  In the meantime, this evening I did an interim cleaning of the third floor.  I'm sure pine dust shaken off the dropcloths is very good for the grass.  And that and my fingers are the ideal tool for pushing a sticky combination of sanding dust and pet hair out of the fins of the shop vac filter . . .