SteveH

Hey folks,

I had planned to wait until I got the first try finished but...well... I can't wait to share. I am expecting a certain amount of failure on this try, but that is part of what we do, learn by failing and trying again.

I have a VERY rough Singer Model 12 that I got in trade from Cathy. Some clever individual removed the rust and painted it black. That is it. No sanding, no evening of the surface, nothing. So, we decided that it would be perfect for my learning to do MOP (Mother Of Pearl) inlay on a machine.

My research indicated that they used "up to 14 coats or more" of paint as necessary to cover the MOP, followed by "as many as 20 hours" of block sanding to bring the finish back down.

I chose the back plate because it was the simplest piece to work with. (I was wrong, it has no flat surfaces which makes it much harder.

Here is the very rough back plate with the MOP glued in place. You can see that the metal was pitted from rust previously. I painted it and then block sanded it back to smooth before putting the MOP on. It does not look smooth but the black spots you see are paint filling the pitting resulting is a level bed. I should have wrapped sandpaper around the part with the rough side out, and then rubbed the MOP back and forth until the underside was curved in the shape of the metal. As it is, I just glued these on. I selected four different thicknesses of MOP, the thickest as near the base, the thinnest is on the end of the long arm.

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Here is what it looks like at the halfway point. 7 coats.
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Here is this morning after 11 Coats. Almost done!
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It is really hard to get a decent shot of a piece of curved material with 11 coats of shiny lacquer!

I should be able to get one more at lunch, one when I get home, and one before bed.

Then Wednesday, I begin sanding....