Sabbatical Day 32 - Catch-up with Paint

My company, Red Gate software, has given me a 6 week sabbatical. I’m documenting the time with all the posts under a tag if you want to follow along.

I'm almost out of time and I leave Monday for the UK. So it's another Saturday catch-up day.

I started the day with a trip to the store. I had to go out anyway, so I grabbed a few more sanding belts and got back to work on things.

Using some new 36 grit sandpaper, I first hit a few rough spots where one of the 3 boards making up a side was taller than others. This went quickly, giving me a relatively smooth surface.

Then I switched to 80 grit and went up and back, flipping the pole after each passage until all 4 sides were done at that level.

I next went to 120 grit, which is good surface prep. It's slow going and messy, as I cut lots of wood dust from the tops, along with some epoxy, but as I worked each side, it was becoming more and more of a pole.

The first two grits also helped me round the top more, breaking and easing the edges on all sides, even where the router didn't cut deep. At the end, I had a heck of a pole.

 

Priming

I wanted to get moving, so I decided to prime the pole. However I first needed to fill in a few spots, which I did with wood filler.

Then I started with the first coat of primer. I'm actually thinking to do a couple here, and the plan I had was to do the top and one side, then go back and do the other side and the top again.

I completed one coat, the flipped it over and did the same thing on the other side. This was all "four" sides get two coats.

The last coat wasn't completely dry when weather came in and I had to hurriedly cover things as the rain started to fall.

I need to order my truck now that I know the top size (2 1/2") and then also get more paint. Hopefully I can paint things tomorrow sometime and then start working on the base.