Nest Theater Part Eleven - Stain & Finish 27Jun20

With the warmer weather I escaped the FR and came to Summit to finish the DIY speakers & audio shelving for the Nest theater. The first step was to thoroughly sand every exposed surface - I used the orbital and took the surfaces from 100 grit down to 220 grit and then used a brush and a tack cloth to wrangle all the dust; this took a full day.

The seconds step was to prep the surfaces with a pre-stain solvent. This is done to assure an even absorption of stain into the plywood - edges vs field is tricky otherwise. I then jumped to staining with black/ebony. Never again. While I think everything came out fine the black staining process is very finicky and very messy. After wiping on the stain I needed to get it all off the surface after 15 minutes. This also took a day as I could really only manage one or 2 surfaces at a time to meet the timing and get a consistent look. Whew. I made a jig to handle the round shelving legs. Plus, each day I was moving stuff into the garage to avoid the PM storms. It was a big third step.

I let the stain dry for an extra day before moving to the fourth step: polyurethane coatings. Poly is best done in warmer weather, check. Poly is best done in multiple thin coatings with finish (600 grit) sanding in between, check; finalized with a steel wool sanding and then a final thin finish coat, check. I chose to air spray the first couple of coats to save time - it worked fine with a thinned ~15% with lacquer thinner and 25psi on the regulated compressor. The final coat was done from a new can of poly with a foam brush. They came out nice.

Plus, vendors finally shipped my N95 filters for my respirator - I ran out at exactly the wrong time.

After another day of drying, the final step was reinstallation. I rebuilt the shelving and reinstalled the Nest Theater audio gear. Kala & I then moved the finished DRC BLHs into the Nest and I reassembled them and dialed it all in again. Finishing is a big job but worth it... the black on Baltic birch is beautiful.