[Build] floor plan draft--response with tho'ts on painting

[jim]

tho'ts interspersed below: 


On Wed, 2009-08-19 at 14:33 -0700, Zedd Epstein wrote:
> If we can swing it, we should pick up spackle, and start filling holes
> and getting those sanded while we're already making a mess.
   i suggest we deprecate spackle. sheet rock mud ("joint 
compound") works great for walls--easy to apply, cheap, 
sold everywhere. (spackle is not good for filling floor 
depressions.) 
   a flexible caulking compound is likely best for the 
cracks between floors and walls, casings and walls, 
probably joints such as in the one working toilet room 
where the ceiling meets the external wall. 
   glazing compound is commonly used to fill holes in 
doors, casings, and other woodwork. there's a technique 
for applying glazing (or putty) to depressions in wood: 
work the material with your hands to warm it up and 
get it malleable, then push the material into the 
depression; while using one hand to force the material 
into the depression, with the other hand slip a broad 
knife across the surface and under your other hand to 
cut through the material; after the knife has passed 
over the entire depression, lift the knife and any 
material around the edges of the knife; take a look 
and you'll see the filling material in the depression 
is level with the surrounding surface. 

>         many lambswool heads for sealant and finish  ( x10 )
consider rolling on the floor sealers and top-coats. 

>         many belts, 40 grit, 60 grit, 80 grit.  Plus a line on where
>         we can
>         get more over the weekend 
   consider large orbital sanders for the final sanding 
pass (you walk them around similar to working with the 
drum sanders). they're easier and more forgiving. 
   edgers work best for floor edges. they're heavy and 
take it out of people who must be on their hands and 
knees, but they do the work faster than hand held belt 
sanders or rotary grinders or orbital sanders (i.e. 
harder work in less time or easier work for a longer 
time, and knees suffer more over more time). 
   there does seem a need for hand held belt sanders, 
rotary grinders, and orbital sanders, as well as for 
scrapers, sheets of sand paper (hand held), and maybe 
a dremel tool. the floor has depressions, gouges, etc. 
that the floor sanders can't dig into. it would be good 
to hand sand or scrape or otherwise abrade the depth so 
that the floor filling goo has a better chance of 
adhering. 
   those hand sanding tools should be used on all doors, 
casings, and any other woodwork as part of prep for 
painting. 

   i recommend using an oil-based interior wall primer 
for all surfaces; application will be best with a 
sprayer, though for the woodwork there should be people 
with brushes following the spray gunner. 
   i recommend an oil-based eggshell finish for top 
coats. spray all surfaces with the same paint. brushers 
should follow the spray gunner for doors, casings, and 
other woodwork. 
   white-white has an index of reflectivity of over 90 
percent. the tiniest bit of pigment reduces reflectivity 
into the 80 percent range. some light tint hues are in 
the 70 percent range. more reflectivity means fewer 
lumens to illuminate, and therefore less energy and 
maybe fewer fixtures. 
   why oil? what's on the surfaces seems water-based. 
different based coatings resist different types of 
osmosis. the existing water-based paint will resist 
oil-borne stains but not water-borne stains. putting an 
oil-based paint will resist water-borne stains that 
would discolor a water-based top coat. an oil-eggshell 
topcoat is appropriate for wood as well as for sheetrock 
surfaces and is easier to clean than water-based paints. 
(you may have noticed a sticky quality to wood surfaces 
painted with water-based paint, that and stains, most 
prominent on the tops of horizontal surfaces such as 
window sills--gets more groady and harder to clean.) 
eggshell sheen is not much apparent; satin sheen is more 
noticeably glossy, which reveals irregular surface 
features and is kind of "noisy" in a visual way. 
   bottom-line: white-white oil-based eggshell sheen on 
all surfaces gets my vote. 


>         more trowels, ideally board width.
   consider using broad knives, probaby 3 and/or 4 inches 
wide. seems to me one of the problems with troweling on 
floor filler was that the workers left too much material 
on the surface, which then took a lot of after-application 
sanding to bring down to the surface of the flooring planks. 
   applying the filler with trowels may be the right way, 
but following up with broad knives will smooth the filler 
to the plank surfaces and spread the excess to new areas. 

>         * leave a space and tools for minor woodworking in case we
>         have to make a wooden plug
   this is a great idea: much better to fashion a plug 
that fills in a depression in the floor and then work 
floor filler around it than to fill the whole hole with 
filler only 

>         * putty team starts puttying.  Puttying most time intensive.
>          Mark
>         time on grid when putty is applied so we know roughly when to
>         expect it to be dry.  Use a light touch, work it into the
>         cracks, and try and
>         keep the boards themselves free of putty.
   i'm guessing you don't mean "putty" per se but floor 
filling material, yes? putty seems a poor choice as it 
takes weeks or months to cure and is weak wrt forces of 
people walking and rolling things. lamont used the right 
stuff, we should use that. lamont should be able to tell 
how long it took for the filler to dry to sandable state. 
   the advice to keep the boards free of "putty" is right, 
and i think using broad knives to follow the trowels will 
give us the (approximately) best results fastest (and with 
less need for developing a technique). 

   Notes on Wednesday evening sanding: 
   i used a drum sander with 40 grit paper to sand down 
two more bays (west of the lamont memorial bay). it took 
me a little more than one hour per bay. 
   the sander may have died in the process: WARNING, when 
renting, i think it will be best to ensure that the lease 
agreement insures the equipment for all failure modes. i 
neglected to opt for insurance, so i may be on the hook 
for some kind of repairs (tho' i'll be screaming and 
yelling, if need be, to get out of that responsibility).