Finshed at Last!
Despite having one of the wettest Septembers in a long time, I managed to finish the fence.
I made one of the most common mistakes that woodworker make, not considering how you are going to finish your project before you assembly it. In my defense, finishing was not suppose to be my responsibility and we really had no idea how we were going to finish it.
We finally decided to finish the fence with a reddish brown semi-transparent stain as it contrasted the with green house very well.
Not only was the intricate lattice design a pain to cut and assemble, it proved an even greater pain to finish. After taking 3 hours to finish one panel with brushes, it did not take a rocket scientist to figure out it would take until next fall to finish it. The only solution was to spray it in place.
I could not see dragging my HVLP sprayer around the fence, especially considering that the fence is built on top of a fairly high retaining wall. I really wanted to use it to avoid a lot of over-spray, but I could not see it working. I remembered that I had a Wagner sprayer and managed to find it. So last Saturday morning we started. About 5 hours later, constant trips to fill the sprayer, balancing on a thin ledge while hanging on with one hand, I managed to actually get some finish on the fence, but I would have to say that a lot of it ended up on me. I had built a homemade spray paddle to keep it from shooting though the other side. I pushed those last couple of hours, knowing that if I stopped it would be very hard to start again. Also, I could not go into the house the way I was, so I just kept at it.
Ended up throwing my clothes away. I loved that old sweater! I have a large jug of citrus hand cleaner with pumice in the shop. I took that with me when I hit the showers. After two complete showers, I almost looked like new.
And for Sharon, pictures of the finished fence: