With the sides of the ribs cut, assembled and primed we moved on to the arche’s centres. Each rib is made from 14 pieces and (one of the joys of CNC routing) they all fit together perfectly!
Once glued is dry we used an air powered die grinder to remove glue seams and any other imperfections. Where everyone else would break out their sander and spend hours trying to get everything perfectly smooth we have always preferred going in the opposite direction — adding texture! There is something warm, friendly, and compelling about a project that looks a little “used.” And as an added bonus, any imperfections the project (inevitably) acquires over the years won’t destroy the integrity of the design!
In the next shot you can see the die grinder’s results — we still have to fill the screw holes and add a bead of caulking on the inside corners to round them out.
Next, we used Coastal Enterprises high build, water based primer (marshmallow paint) to add one last layer of texture. We used a one inch brush and random strokes, leaving ridges of primer everywhere. All this texture will start to make sense once we add the rust paint.
