epox-what?

Can I just say that walking into for upholstery class last night was heavenly. Massive open industrial workroom. The best tools and equipment a DIY upholstery girl could ever ask for -perfectly organized and labeled. The most magnificent industrial sewing machines. Massive work spaces to perfectly cut and measure fabrics. And a secret back room of everyone's in-process projects that my mom and I snooped through in awe. A. MA. ZING.

After my heart came back to a normal rate, we got to work. As expected, Randy, my teacher, doubted our abilities to do this chair. The more nails we took out (and we extracted at least 200), the more the rickety chair fell to pieces. Then my mom started to doubt us and said our project looked like firewood (and it did. but worse).

Then Randy introduced us to our chair lifesaver: wood epoxy. After both of our somewhat dramatic reaction to the extreme smell, we got to work and patched up the legs and bottom rim of the chair. And wouldn’t you know that suddenly she was as sturdy as could be! (ok. Not even close to sturdy yet, but it made a HUGE difference!).

We spent the 3 hour class removing nails and the back springs and then I insisted on bringing the chair back home with me. I know – what was I thinking? I have two once-orange chairs that are now naked and in the basement and I shouldn’t brush them aside so quickly. Fear not. I’ll only have this chair in my hands for a week and then I promised to only work on it during class. I just couldn’t imagine spending the next 2 classes only applying wood glue and epoxy and taking out the remaining nails. I can knock that out this weekend and then be ready to do some real work next class.

Most students taking the course started last fall and are still working on the same project this semester. Apparently getting a piece finished in one semester is a rarity. Shocking at first (I mean, 16 weeks, 3 hours a week = way more than enough time to do one chair!); but then I remind myself that I’ve never had to retie springs and basically rebuild the chair from the ground up – plus, in addition to actual work time, there’s time for learning techniques, looking at how to do a variety of projects, etc (we even have a textbook!). Looks like we may not have a finished product until late 2011.

In the meantime, I’m thinking I need some sort of apron or tool belt for my class. Nobody else had one, but I think it could spruce things up a bit. And, given that I have to wear such mangy clothes to class (i.e. ripped jeans and a tshirt), wouldn’t it be nice to add something like this:

                                                                    
http://bit.ly/gISrzm


I think so.

Kate