Nov 30

 Tired and nauseous.

I am getting bored saying it. Regrettably I cannot shift either.

Everyday is a nausea day. Worse when I sit up. Typically if I spend time on a computer sitting upright, inevitably I start to feel sick and then stay that way. It makes everything an unpleasant experience. It waxes and wanes of its own accord over some hours, eventually I get tired "fighting it", and I have to give up and lie down. Where typically it lowers a notch. And comes as something of a relief.

Meh.

Yesterday I continued to experiment with finishes on my boxes. Whilst battling with nausea.

So, after the first cloisonne trial revealed that the stain was reactivating, I have now tested two different sealing varnish sprays.

The junker box I have is proving to be a great asset for testing - same wood, same stain, same scale. But it's junk. So I can test different approaches.

One half of the box lid is coated in one varnish ( mid range quality ). The other half has another varnish ( high end quality ). And a small strip without any varnish.

So the good news is that both varnishes passed the test of sealing against cloisonne. It looks like the two are pretty comparable in finish and capability, except one is half the price of the other. That being said, the pricier one has a very matte finish, the other one is a just a tad above matte.

Ok. Next.

How did the watered down glue and varnish layer turn out ?

Mixed results.

The sand has definitely been fixed in place. So. That's a win. However. The varnish has singularly failed to give any kind of gloss finish at all. I am left with a sandpaper finish ( albeit in a charming green colour ).

Hmm. Ok.

So a few things occur to me.

1) The sand / wood / whatever, is soaking up the glue and varnish and leaving the top surface to be just sand.
or
2) The watered down glue varnish layer is too watered down to give a gloss finish
or
3) The gloss varnish is just not working period.

So, the product I am using is proven to be a gloss finish. So. 3 should be off the table. However. I will test this. The other 2 however are much more debatable.

So I have made some more tests. This time I have applied a non thinned down second coat of glue and varnish to the cloisonne. I've also experimented a little with whether I need to push it into the details or whether it will naturally  spread out when drying ( I suspect not as it's too viscous ).

I've also laid down some new cloisonne, and whilst wet, tried the non thinned mix.

Finally I've just applied the glue varnish to the wood directly, on both test sides, in varying concentration levels, from non watered down, all the way to mostly water. Just to see what effect it has on finish ( early results are showing that watered down, the gloss effect disappears entirely. Uh huh. )

I also have a second glue and varnish product I have done some similar tests with.

Junker box testing. Everything is wet and in the process of drying

The wood stain in the picture is rough. Not the final product. It's good enough to get me a bleed test and not much more. This is most definitely a junker box that I can just test shit out on.

Many tests. Much patience.

One thing that has come up is how easy and at the same time fiddly the process is. There is a technique to it, and it's getting easier as I understand how the various mediums flow ( getting used to water logged sand, how quickly it dries, and then how different manipulating dry sand to wet sand can be has a learning curve for instance ! ). You can zip along at a fair clip once you start getting the hang of it, but, the slightest slip means the liquid escapes the engraving and gets you an unwanted finish on the bits you want matte. Problematic. You have to pace yourself to be careful and not get carried away with it. I think this is just about dialing in the right level of speed vs precaution to take. Like everything else at this stage it's a technique issue. 

A few things occur to me about this process. If, as I suspect, I can't do a one and done glue and varnish layer to this, and I end up requiring a double layer, I wonder what the point of a combined glue and varnish is at all. If you're going to do it twice anyway, surely, a glue layer, dry, then a varnish layer, dry, is going to be a better bet.

Also. If it starts coming down to a pure varnish level on top, it starts to lean heavily into a, why isn't this just a resin pour at this point. Skip all the fuss. Go with resin. Not unreasonable. But then you have to deal with resin shrinkage. And you get a different finish again. I think you would struggle getting the right colour / transparency from a pure resin pour. A cloisonne / resin seal arguably would be the best bet ( or hilariously, again, a 2 step process, but this time with resin, an opaque bottom layer and a clear top layer ). But. Resin is a more difficult to work with than just a varnish.

I doubt I will go with resin unless I really really can't get any kind of gloss finish going.

I suspect I just need to either switch to a dedicated varnish with a 2 or 3 step process, or, just do multi layers of glue and varnish together. I doubt the single pass will be enough - even with an unwatered down glue / varnish.

We shall see.

I have yet to test cloisonne shading with different coloured sands and gradients ( something you definitely couldn't do in the same way with resin ). Very pretty end result. Not sure I can be bothered as it's on a fairly small scale, and I am wary of fucking it up as that looks like a more complicated technique to nail down. I am tempted to do it on the lettering though if nothing else with a simple - ish colour fade.

Going back to bed.

Exhausted.