Day 53: Sanding is a Life-threatening Endeavor

I completed sanding all of the sharps last night using only the 0000 steel wool. It resulted in a much better finish that was ready to accept the fifth coat of paint.

I took a break about every three sharps and sanded up a few natural key top heads. As you will recall, my hands hurt pretty much all the time, so the break is not only nice, it's necessary if I want to get more than a few done per evening.

Sanding the natural heads required me to fit each head to each key top, holding the key upside down against the blackwood and drawing a cut line to which I would sand using my trusty belt/disc sander.

The small piece of poplar clamped to the sanding deck was designed to give the illusion I was making a perfect 90-degree "cut" using the disc. Because I cut all of the keys from a single piece of jointed wood using the band saw, none of the keys are what I would consider perfectly square, so this solution worked quite well. I also brought the floor lamp over from the band saw to shed some light on the subject and was able to get all of the heads completed between frequent sharp sanding breaks.

As you can see, I thought I was being safe by wearing a mask until one of my Facebook friends, Andrew Nolan (an Australian builder), told me the model I was wearing was completely ineffective against airborne dust. Taking his advice, I went ahead and ordered a new one from eBay. It should be here soon.

The results of all of this were the completion of the sharp sanding and the preparation of the natural key top heads. I was able to hit the sharps with a fifth coat of paint and will put the sixth on tonight so I can burnish them up with the steel wool by the weekend.

Overall, it was a productive evening, which was nice after a bit of a break from building.

Until next time...