When I lent my services to a collegue who was working on a film about 12 years ago, I was introduced to the world of cnc. I remember watching this huge machining centre milling out a slab of mdf and turning it into a fantastic set of gears. I knew that it would have taken me hours to achieve the same thing with traditional power tools. I decided then that I would invest in a cnc router for my own business Oxenham Design. At that time I could turn on a computer, but even to check email seemed like a crazy set of operations. I persevered and learned every piece of relevant software I could get my hands on. I am now fortunate enough to be using Vectric's ASPIRE software, and Techno cnc routers, which has helped us to create some amazing projects, both in part, or in full. I thought that this blog would be a great place to share "behind the scenes" adventures with the software, materials and equipment we use, as well as the projects we build.

Tuesday 14 July 2015

I LOVE Polyester Primer!!

I love spraying our high build polyester primer! It flows so nicely out our HVLP gun. It is a 2-part primer, but the mix is pretty tolerant. The best thing about it though, is the fact that you can start sanding it in about half an hour! It's rock hard when it dries too. In fact, on these two guys, we had some small undercuts, that we're able to fill with just a clean clay, and we can spray right over it. The coating is hard enough (at the right thickness) that it won't break-out where the clay was used. I'm not talking HUGE holes, but small little ones. And clay is such an easy filler, that the whole process is super easy!
Is that Jody sanding again?!? Of course it is!! Poor girl! Actually, I'm not a total animal, I did help a little. I have noticed that the primer does seem to get harder to sand, the longer it sits, but we try to tackle it as soon as possible after it flashes off.
Originally, these were to be a patina bronze, with a marble base, but seconds before we were going to start the base coat, production called, and changed them to pristine copper. Phew........
The copper is a lacquer paint, which means we have to get the whole thing sprayed, pretty much in one shot. If the wet lacquer hits flashed lacquer, it goes dull and dusty looking. So to make things go super fast, both Jody and I sprayed each bust together. Her on one side, and me on the other!
After about 10 minutes, we masked off the copper, and sprayed the bases a bronze-ishy color. That took about an hour to dry before we could unmask them.

They looked quite serious sitting on the table, with no sense of humors between them! I kinda want to keep one of them for myself, but then again, it would probably end up sitting next to my 10 foot Spanish galleon in the garage!
8)
JWO



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