ID Practice: Shelf Project
The following two exercises were an introduction to spray-painting high gloss finishes onto a variety of materials. Using a can of SPRAYON spray-paint and high grit sandpaper I was able to achieve high quality finishes on both objects.
The project brief was to build a shelf to very detailed dimensions. Learning about materials, woodworking, tolerances and precision workmanship. The shelf was required to have two edge radiuses of 15mm and a fillet of radius 20mm. I created the edge radiuses using sandpaper glued to a scrap piece of 22mm MDF. Using a 30mm hole saw I created the perfect guide for the radius, keeping to the exact tolerances of the brief. To create the fillet, I used a polyester based car body filler and a plastic scraper I shaped to have a 40mm diameter round on the corner.
The shelf needed to have a high gloss spray painted surface finish and I used leftover spray-paint from a previous project in order to be sustainable and less wasteful. The back of the shelf was required to have a texture <1mm thick. I chose a transparent plastic mesh, glued with contact adhesive. The glue created a very interesting ripple effect in the parts where it shows through the mesh. The textured side was spray-painted with high gloss orange paint leftover from the tealight holder project in order to be less wasteful and create a link between all my projects. The sides were sanded to 400 grit but left as raw wood.
Progress Photos
Making of the groove that fits the dowel
Radius tool
Previous attempts and texture glue up
The material for the shelf was 16mm MDF and the dowel used was 19mm. I created the groove for the dowel using a very shallow table saw cut 40mm from the front edge and then using a series of files and dowels wrapped in sandpaper sanded a 6mm deep groove that allows the dowel to perfectly nest in place. I chose to use a Rabbet joint to join my two pieces together as I have never done one before and this was a great opportunity to learn.
ID Practice: Spray-painted object
This exercise was to take an object from around our homes and spray-paint it. I used a wine glass and a can of SPRAYON blue spray-paint to apply a high gloss finish.
Detail photos
Progress photos showing the first coat of spray-paint between layers of sanding.
