Shades of pale?

After a couple of weeks of work, the 'puter desk for Megs is in the final stage. I spent the better part of yesterday using a ROS and assorted grades of paper to bring it to a decent enough standard of finish. I like to use matt acrylic varnish now on these sorts of projects as I can gloop on a coat and then another about a half hour later...gone are the days of waiting for weeks on end (or so it seemed) for polyurethane to dry as the job seemed to be hanging around in the workshop forever and a day.

The really appealing thing about the acrylic however, is that it doesn't make the timber turn an instant 'mellow yellow' colour (now I'm being 'refined' here, when I could have been a bit more uncoof) rather the pine tends to keep its natural pale colour...and the brushes can be washed in water, which is even better. Having varnished all the pieces, I always leave it overnight just to cure properly (even though it's dry it tends to be a bit tacky) so tonight all the bits will be taken up to Meg's bedroom and assembled 'on site'

I moderately pleased with the drawer on this one, as it went together well and I managed to make it fit smoothly...a little candle wax on the runners will improve things tonight when it goes upstairs. The best piece of kit though, to fit a drawer (apart from a close mouthed smoother) is a set of mechanics feeler gauges, as by using them, I can accurately determine just where the high spots are on the drawer sides. If something like this is not used it really then becomes a matter of guess work and you tend to take a bit off all round and in the process, hope that you've removed the offending slither. The feeler gauge lets you know exactly where the drawer is binding so that only that small section can be planed...probably just a thin shaving or two is all that'll be needed to remedy the bump. The end result of course, is that the drawer then fits like a smooth piston rather than a sloppy, baggy box that rattles and bumps it's way into the opening. Planing off too much is very easily done and when the drawer fits badly it's intensely bloody annoying!

On the other hand, when it fits smoothly, one is left with a rather different sort of feeling...