A Spit and A Polish

Morning folks,

I have been working through the final steps toward finishing up the Steampunk floor dais for my Grand Parlor.  I know that as I install and attach the floor, I will be adding additional details, but the body of the work is now done.

Since I posted last, my major effort has been toward finishing the floor.  I have done some touch up, some additional filling of gaps, and the the obvious, adding the final finish to the floor.  What a dramatic change!  

As a first step, I wanted to bring out the grains in the wood, so I added stains to the floor using Minwax Wood Finish Stain Marking Pens.  For the Mahogany Veneers I used primarily Red Mahogany Stain, and for the Sapelle Veneer, I primarily used the Golden Oak Stain.  If you have never used these they are wonderful!  Just like coloring in preschool!  They are perfect for small projects such as minis. 

Once I had completed the staining, I still could see some small gaps that I didn't want showing...so I did some additional repair.  The Makeup treatment was perfect for the smaller gaps, but there were a couple of larger gaps that I felt needed more.  So I used some Minwax Wood Putty to fill those gaps. 

After the tiniest bit of touch up with copper paint here and there where my work had faded the copper paper, I added (you guessed it) Minwax High Gloss Polyurethane, which began to give the floor a real finished look. 

Being the perfectionist that I am, however, I felt the floor was much rougher than I wanted...this had to do with the veneers...some of them curled a tiny bit as they were applied, and the Sapelle veneer remained somewhat rough even after a lot of sanding.  

In addition, where I had placed the copper disk to the back left of the photo above, there was a very rough edge around the button I had used as the center, and it was really bugging me.  So I improvised, and put a jewelry finding in the center, which did a grand job of distracting the eye so that you don't see the roughness.

So to smooth out the final floor surface, I have put approximately 9 coats of poly on the floor, sanding every time with #0000 Steel Wool in between. The final floor is shiny and wonderful!  And overall, it is fairly smooth.  I imagine that I will put another two to three coats of poly on it to finalize it, but as you can see, the floor is looking fairly good!  I am reasonably  happy with the final result. 

I expect this to be the last you will see of the Parlor floor as the main topic of my posts!  I have really enjoyed putting this together, and I am looking forward to completing the ceilings, walls, and flooring of this room!   On to new adventures!

Until Next Time!

Doug S