the saga continues

So.

After sanding the primer off the table,

I went and bought a can of spray primer.

It went on really weird - and when dry

the table looked and felt like it was covered in tiny powder balls.

So I sanded some more.

Fortunately, when done sanding that time,

I had a nice smooth surface of primer.

So I painted my first coat.

It looked just fine,

so I sanded it just a tiny bit

because everything I read said to.

Then I started applying the second coat.

It didn't go so well

can you see the drag?? click on the picture if you need to


I tried fixing it with a bit of water on my brush
(learned that through all my research, too...)
but it still looked like crap
so I stopped painting, waited for it to dry
and -  you guessed it - pulled out the sandpaper
again.

This table is going to look good, darn it!

Tyler suggested getting a paint gun from Harbor Freight.

Now, I'm not a huge HF fan,

but some things from there are ok.

I looked up guns & reviews

and found one on sale for $14 that had 4.5 stars.

With 39 reviews, I figured that was pretty good.

I read through every single one

and when Tyler put the girls down for a nap,

I ran to town.

While at HF, I found another gun, also on sale,

that was specifically for latex paint

and sat down right there in the store

(SI joint is still bugging me)

and looked up reviews on it

(on the iPhone4 the fam bought me for Mother's Day).

I bought both guns.

~

Fortunately, I thought to try out the gun with water

before loading it with paint;

The latex gun has trigger issues - it doesn't stop spraying.

so I didn't even get to try it.

The other one, Brandon took apart and cleaned

as per the directions.

(contrary to popular opinion, I am a rule follower...)

We ran water through it,

then got ready to paint.

I'd read enough to learn that most problems with paint spraying

are due to operator error & inexperience,

so we opted to paint some less important pieces for practice.

I thought the boards turned out pretty good,

but was a bit surprised at how rough they were;

I'd thought the 1x2s were pretty smooth.

huh.

I decided that I should have sanded them more,

but wasn't worried 

since they were just for some beach chairs for the little ones. 

Today

I decided I was sufficiently trained in spray gunning 

to attempt my table-top.

Big mistake.

Huge.

My dadgum table feels like sandpaper!

And I know it was well-sanded and smooth prior to spraying!

But the good news is

I have further researched

(I am just about sick of researching!)

and think I know what I need to do to fix it

(short of buying a better sprayer)

and the other good news is:

Monday, while I was at Harbor Freight,

I bought more sandpaper.