A long jobYesterday I spent another few hours sanding Zaphod's stand. As you can see from the photo, there's still a way to go. And I haven't even started the hoof rails.
Naturally, with a hundred and twenty year-old stand, there are plenty of dents, scratches and cracks, all of which are filled with beastly red gloss paint. This has to be removed, though the wood won't end up looking like new - I wouldn't want it to anyway!
You can also see I've been avoiding the stencil, for fear of removing it. I've had plenty of good advice from Rocking Horse Elite's eBay group. The stencils were normally (but not invariably) done in ink rather than paint, which is why the paint stripper did not lift it off. I'm anxious about tackling it; I'm going to leave it till last, then tiptoe up to it with cotton buds, Nitromors and white spirit.
Jackie Darnborough's 'twin' horse has the stencil too.
2 comments:
Are you going to paint over the stencil once you've finished sanding?
No; the stand was varnished wood originally (I can tell this because when I removed the later addition struts along the top rail, it was a varnished finish underneath). Also I want to show off the stencil.
I will most likely use French polish, which is shellac-based. Polyurethane was not around in the 1880s!
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