Wednesday, August 24, 2011

A-Frame Construction Part III: Painting

Painting always takes a really long time.  The plans I'm roughly following (http://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-Dog-Agility-A-Frame/) call the A-frame an afternoon project.  The construction zips along pretty fast, but I always find that sand painting takes forever.  Not something I can do in an afternoon.

I primed everything before I started construction.

Next I put a coat of primer on the top and sprinkled sand liberally on top.  I did this section by section so the primer was nice and wet to grab the sand.

Then I let that sand and primer dry.

Once the paint was dry I brushed off any loose sand.

Then I sealed the sand in with another coat of primer.  This coat takes a lot of time and a lot of paint, because it has to get in all the little nooks and crevices between each grain of sand.

It takes a long time for this layer to dry.  I'm currently waiting for it and giving it overnight.  I honestly won't be too surprised if it's not dry by morning.  On the dogwalk boards, I rushed the next coat of paint after this sand-sealing-layer, but my advice is WAIT!  It's worth it.

When it's finally dry you can apply the colored paint.  It may take two coats depending on the paint and how dark you want the color.  I'll let you know how that goes for ours tomorrow.

On another note, we're supposed to get a hurricane this weekend.  I'm not sure if I want to wait until after the storm to assemble the A-frame or not...

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