i'm about to put the third and final coat of varnish on the pieces for this bed frame here
and i have to do the prep for it and i don't get too fancy i just want a quick job that's decent
quite often it runs a little bit as it dries so i have these drips on the bottom side this
will be up against the post so it won't even be visible but i like to scrape these drip marks off
with a very sharp chisel or a knife just so there's no bumps on it more drip marks here
there between the mattress and the side boards so you could at least feel those
the normal recommendation is to do a light sanding between coats
but uh just to cut off any bumps and stuff like that i like to use a cabinet scraper instead
now that looks awful but it feels really smooth
of course for the curved parts i still have to use sandpaper
i need to get the dust off i could use a brush and a cloth but i prefer to just blow it off
i'm varnishing both sides and for putting varnish side down i made these little triangular sections
so it just rests on an edge that still leaves a slight mark in the final varnish but for the back
side it's not too bad i could also varnish it standing up i made these little uh wide
feet on there to help with that but i'm much more likely to get varnish running when the surface is
vertical and of course varnish the back side first so that when i flip it over it'll be on the bottom
i'm using an oil-based varnish for this and i always like to put some in a separate container
just in case i knock it over and last time i didn't thoroughly clean the brush
so i just left it in some paint thinner so that it wouldn't harden
i like using these apple sauce containers for that because they're nice and sturdy and i have
some glaring bright lights set up so that way it's easier to see if i miss the spot when i varnish
i put the final coat on the front middle panel really thick because
i knew it couldn't run off the edge i'm only putting a final coat on the outside
of the side rails because the inside is just going to face the mattress
finally it's time to clean the brush and because this
is oil-based paint i have to use paint thinner and i use the same paint thinner over and over
what happens is the varnish ends up settling out into this
thick goo on the bottom and the rest of the paint thinner is still good for cleaning a brush many
many times this is also paint third it's been used quite a few times that's why it's a bit yellow
and i rinse it many many times each time with a small
quantity
and a final rinse with some nice new paint printer
that headboard panel that i put the super thick coat on came out really nice and smooth
the rest of the bed frame has got various imperfections like it's a bit rough here this
is not quite consistent i dribbled some varnish on right here by accident etc i could always put
on another coat but at some point you gotta call it done this will get thinged up in time anyways