tragedies #1: sealed with a trip

Let me show you why tonight’s shop-time sucked…

Sigh… So I had a 2gal bucket of Anchorseal – prized wood end grain sealer for drying logs and planks. I was carrying it to a spot in the shop where I was to seal up a bunch of European olive bottle blanks I resawed and cut up from a large log tonight. My foot got hung up really well on something – maybe my rolling stand – and I lurched forward hard. Of course, I never trip like that, but since I was carrying a bucket of liquid wax emulsion… I hadn’t put the lid on the bucket properly – just sat it lightly on top – because I had just been using it, and was only bringing it over to use it closer to where I was working.

I should have capped it AND carried it by the pail handle. Alas, I absolutely launched its contents out of it. It was the same kind of 2-handed motion you’d do if you were trying to throw the contents of a bucket out a window, or into someone’s face. I emptied it entirely, while screaming ”NOOOOooooo!”, and it made the same kind of noise you get when emptying a bucket into the tub, a sickening splash and splatter. I recall closing my eyes and not wanting to open them ever again. You’ll note my shoe is rather well sealed now. I guess that new shoe purchase I keep putting off will get bumped forward on my to-buy list.

You can see the joy in my eyes there. I’ll do a separate post soon on the bottle blanks, because the inside of that European olive log is just beautiful, and I got a lot of pretty pictures. The sealer on my arm is from the initial launch of everything out of the bucket.

In an earlier photo, you see a scrap of plywood coated entirely. I emptied it back into the bucket, then started using it to ‘lift’ the viscous sealer off the floor. I couldn’t just scoop it up, because the floor is a mess in my shop, covered in sawdust, screws, tree parts, labels, plastic strips – in short, it needs a hardy cleaning. So, I kept laying the sheet in the puddle, then picking it up and flipping it over quickly, and using a turning blank as a scraper to ‘shave’ the new surface of sealer back into the bucket. You can see the scraped ply board in this shot:

I managed to get a pretty clean 3” high volume back into the bucket, enough to seal up the blanks. I’m normally quite dainty in my sealings, trying not to get any on my hands, because I don’t like sliminess. It was too late for that now, though, and I just ended up plunging my hand into the bucket with each blank in many cases. Way faster! My hands should be silky smooth tomorrow :) The worst part was that I was trapped in the garage, because my hands were now frictionless. Even after I wiped them down, I had a very hard time with the smooth brass doorknob. I could’ve starved in there!

Cleanup’s going to be fun. I imagined paper towels, sponges and a bucket, a steam cleaner to melt and suck it all back up, something absorbent and a heat gun to melt the dried stuff in, yanking it free like an eyebrow waxing, or just letting it dry out, and using a metal or plastic scraper. Shame the floor is rough concrete. That won’t help any. Here’s an example of how fruitless paper towels would be, in video form:

It’s so thick, sticky, and waxy, the paper towels just push it around. I’ve spilled a blob or three here and there on the floor before, and once they get dusted in sawdust, those spots become slippery like ice. This spill is going to pose some interesting problems for me, even after I clean it up.

I ordered the 5gal bucket last week, as I was nearing the halfway point on this, and now I’m going to be doing all this resawing. It arrives this week. Stay tuned for the MEGADISASTER I’m planning for that container once it gets here!

Sigh…

-- Gary, Los Angeles, video game animator