re: #509 RealityBasedSteve

A friend of mine who is an avid guitarist got on me for having 5 bicycles. I tried to explain that they were all different, good for different purposes, each was unique when I rode them… He kept saying ‘yea, but they are just bikes’. I asked him “And how many guitars do you have now?”. He got exactly what I meant.

I’m no musician, but I do woodwork, I love rosewood, and think that rosewood coupled with curly (or quilted) maple is one of the most beautiful combinations there is.

I love wood. But right now, I am in a titanic battle with the quarter-sawn white oak trim in the 1906 house I am rehabbing. The entire main lower and upper hallway and main staircase is all quarter-sawn white oak, and it gives the house a hell of a lot of character. But it was abused when the place was an inner city slum-landlord rooming house/apartment.

It is gorgeous with all tiger stripes and crazy patterns, but it is a real bitch to strip it. I think it was originally covered with shellac and then probably hit with a few coats of older spar varnishes. Getting all that old dark varnish out of the grain in taking me forever. I use mild strippers (3M Safest stripper…when I can get it) and they are doing a good job of getting the upper coats off, but then toi get down into those little deep “hair-like” grain flecks is proving to be very time consuming. I am going through brass wire brushes left and right, and with the safer strippers, there is a bit of fuzziness left that needs to be sanded.

But I’ll do what I have to do, because I can well imagine how it will all look when finished. I figure this is going to take me all summer and into fall.

And then it will be going through the same process with the formal living room and the mahogany trim in it.