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Brad
Selfish Heathen
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Zone of Pain
 
2012-05-22, 22:53

Updates to the Goddess's Harp!

I've been pouring hours into this thing over the past couple of weeks. Gesso, dry, sand. Gesso, dry, sand. I lost count along the way, but it has at least 10 thin coats across the whole body. I was finally satisfied enough that 90% of the lumps were gone, realizing that getting that last 10% to perfection would take an ever-increasing length of time of careful brushing and sanding over and over. Time to move on.

The final round of sanding used 180 grit sandpaper. A fine powder coats everything in my home office. The stuff just floats and doesn't like to sink. Cleanup is going to take a while.



The final product is going to be gold, but I've done enough projects like this to know that I should have a dark primer before laying on any metallic paints. I gently sprayed on a layer of black paint, taking distant wide sprays to avoid the trademark "splats" that spray-painting tends to produce.



I was a little disappointed that the dried black spray paint actually felt rougher than the well-sanded gesso. So, I tried something I'd never done before: sanding after spray painting. This turned out to be a genius move, as this round of sanding delivered an even smoother surface! This time I went for the finest sandpaper I could find at the local hardware store: 600 grit. The surface actually feels like glossy plastic afterwards. I tried to capture some of its smooth sheen in this pic under a desk lamp.



Next was time to re-drill the sink holes for the cords. The holes had shrunk a bit as I layered on the gesso. Pretty straightforward, albeit stressful, to hold the drill steady at just the right angles.



More pics to come later! I've just now given the harp its first coat of metallic gold spray paint. After it dries, I have only a few more steps to go…

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