Olive Painting

Painting the olives has been a long and painful experience. I have a bit of automotive painting experience in my life and i understand the importance and difficulties that you can run into with painting. Well i think i hit just about everyone of them.

First i used some bondo to fill in some imperfections and screw holes from the lathe.

Then i wanted to try something new. I thinned out some standard yellow wood glue with water and painted it onto the MDF olives. This actually worked REALLY well. The glue soaked into the MDF and created a great sandable surface to start applying spray paint to.

So i ran to Home Depot and got some spray paint. I used a primer for enamel and built up to three coats of primer with sanding in between. The primed olives were looking perfect but i ran out of primer.

So while i was at walmart one day getting groceries i picked up another can of primer. I used the same manufacture but it was aimed for automotive use. What i failed to realize is it was lacquer based.

I got home and applied the primer. About 5 minutes later the new primer turned my beautiful 3 previous coats or primer into a big runny melted mess! They reacted with each other and there was nothing i could do.

I go out the lacquer thinner and started removing ALL coats of primer from the boxes. I was back to my raw wood boxes.

Now this is when i made my next mistake. I was frustrated and mad that i could make such a stupid mistake. I get the boxes cleaned back up but not good enough.

I purchased two more cans of the original primer for enamel and started applying it with sanding in between coats.

Everything is looking great! I apply my first coat of green. Still looking great! I apply a second coat of green and the ORANGE PEEL Rears it's ugly head!

I did not clean off the lacquer thinner well enough off of the box. The primer underneath was soft and causing the green paint to orange peel.

So i threw my hands up in the air and decided to start all over. I put the olives back on the lathe and sanded/turned them back down to raw MDF. This weekend i will be starting all over with painting. This time i will be much more careful!