Painting the Town: part 4

The decals arrived in yesterday's mail so I'm a happy camper. First coat of the black paint needed quite a bit of sanding, much to my dismay, but I used a 3M sanding pad for metal for finishing. It took all those tiny flecks off but also the shine so I was disappointed. Another coat of the black, starting with it turned upside down, came out pretty good:

Coat 2 of black

For some reason, the top came out a bit more matte finish but I will have to do many more coats so that's okay. I did some more reading and find out I can have as many coats as it takes so I might have to do 2 more to get the finish I want. The decals go on over the first coat of clear-coat with 2 more coats of the clear to seal it all in.

Coat 3 came out even better so I'm becoming a little more hopeful:

Coat 3 of black

I've been trying to figure out how to keep any debris out of the paint so I placed a new sheet of paper in the bottom of my improvised spray booth. I was happy with the results until I found this, right on the front edge:

Hair in the spray!

Hair! Only one piece, and fairly fine at that, but now I will have to wet sand and spray again. On the plus side, it does turn out better each time. This time I will spray under the "arm" as well as the bed but hope this is the last coat of black.

Once again, while I'm waiting for coats to dry, I'm working on the cabinets I have. A very good but in poor condition is a Stratavario cabinet. It's all stripped now but needs a good sanding before I even think about any finishing coats:

Stratavario cabinet stripped

There was a small plastic tray on the inside of the front door but it had broken off and was long gone. I dug through my stuff and found 2 of those drawers and one is a perfect fit, right down to the screw holes. Score! It will be nice to have it complete again and this cabinet really is nice wood.

So we continue to wait and watch paint dry. It will be worth it, I keep telling myself but I have this gut feeling that the hardest part is yet to come. So continue with the Sewing Machine Mavin as she adds coats of paint. Can she do it? Stay tuned!