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Finishing - Drain Tubes - Mishaps

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Things that make you say "Aw...Crap!"

Or something to that effect...  As a few of you know, I use a drip tube to finish my rods.  I constructed mine so that there's a PVC elbow at the bottom of the tube, in which a press fit bushing with the valve screwed into it goes.  So far, I've done a pretty good job at making sure the valve is closed before I pour the spar into the tube (knock on wood...)  Well, just before the storm hit here on the weekend, I was attempting to put the "final" coat of finish on the rod I'm currently working on.  Moved the drip tube out to center stage, grab the valve/bushing, ensuring in the process that the valve was indeed closed, and popped it into the elbow.  All well and good so far.  Open the "gallon" of Helmsman, check the consistency, and put the funnel complete with filter into the top of the drip tube.  Drag the little step stool over, climb up and start pouring the Helmsman into the tube, like so many times before.  Oh, by the way, I picked up a new finish filter from the local body shop supply store too.  They come in fine and ultra find mesh, and since the mesh is synthetic, no stray fibers or such gets into the paint.  The mesh looks as fine as a nylon stocking, but the beauty is, it has a stiff paper funnel.  So, you can stick it down inside a regular funnel, and not have to worry about the sides collapsing.  Finish flows through it pretty good too.  I'm gonna head back to the auto body supply store and get me a box of 'em.  They gave me this one to try, and it works great.  Anyway, back to the story.  The urethane is flowing nicely into the tube, through the filter, and I'm pouring at a nice rate.  The finish makes it about 2/3's of the way up the tube, and all of a sudden, I hear this "Pop"....  Awwwww Craaaaapppppp.....  Yup, the bushing with the valve had popped out of the elbow.  The drip tube is 1 1/2" id...  Do the math...  How long does it take for about 3/4's of a gallon of urethane to exit the tube and spread itself all over my shop floor?  Now the space/time continuum was warped a little here, but I'm gonna take a SWAG, and say about 4 seconds...  You know how much of a pain in the butt it is to mop up almost 3/4's of a gallon of spar urethane from a concrete floor?

Okay, I spilled my guts.  Not quite up there in the stratosphere with some of Sir Nunley's exploits (I don't have a pony tail to catch the finish...  Wait!  Neither does he anymore...  =8^Þ), but I'm working on it Bob.  I think it's time again for the annual "Why'd I do dat..." competition to commence.  Anybody else have any tales of woe, mayhem, personal injury, or other shop nonsense they'd care to expound on?

Let the games begin!  (Mark Wendt)

I'm a newbie, but this one got me- I just finished planing out and binding a Big Texas General- 9 wt, 9 foot for kings - grabbed the wrong weight and used just 12 ounces while binding that large tip- seams appeared everywhere - throw it out and start again.  (Jon Lyman)

Since I am new at this and cheap besides it seemed practical to try and use some used blades. In order to clean them up I started sanding them but this was to slow. I tried some of my sharpening stones but they were not flat (bought them at an auction, used). So I said, at 2 AM, "I will try the belt sander". WRONG MOVE ! I now have very thin blades with very deep scratches.  (Randy Tuttle)

How about when my beveler shed a carbide tooth at speed when tapering a strip. That sucker simply exploded! Sent the offending tooth about 3" deep into the ceiling beam, the remains of the strip through the drywall wall 15' away, the 'safety shield' was blow into a million pieces, broke two bones in my hand and the thing sounded like a center fire rifle going off next to my head. Couldn't go near the machine for a week after that.  (AJ Thramer)