...5.30...Friday Update...

...the mailbox project continues...and it's really pretty much of a pain...because we have to lift it out of its wobbly hole to work on it for a couple of hours and then put it back in time for the mail to run...

...it's made of really thick steel and it was welded together and painted with some sort of baked on epoxy 20 years ago...but it was damaged somewhere along the way and the lower paper box is crooked as is the decorative butterfly cutout...

...so we used a rubber mallet and some vices to get it pretty straight and level...

...it's kind of hard to see how wonky it really is...

...our garage sounded like a Buddhist temple with the loud gong noises we made with the rubber mallet...

...but we finally got things level again...

...this is the paint we'll be using...we have 5 cans...hope that's enough for several light coats...

...we spread out some plastic...

...and primed the places where we had sanded down to bare metal...

...on the mailbox too...

...and then started with the first light coat of the black...

...then I had to run out to Lowes as I also wanted to paint the little flag as he was looking kindof sad and faded as well...so I got a nice bright red...and one of these sprayer holder thingies that'll make it a lot easier to press the button down on the paint spray can...and some gold outdoor paint to paint the letters that we sanded off back on the box...

..and then because that baked on epoxy finish had chipped off in a few places...we mixed up some epoxy and filled those in...when it's dry we'll sand it smooth...otherwise...if we just painted over it...it wouldn't rust...but you'd still see the chip...kind of like a chip in a bathtub or sink finish...

...just a few places...

...all of the chips probably occurred when the 'accident' occurred...as it bent the metal...

...and put enough stress on the bent places to flake off the finish...

...a couple more coats on the mailbox...

...a very fine black paint dust settles on the plastic...so you have to be really careful not to track it off of the plastic...

...and then I made a stencil to paint the numbers back on the front of the mailbox...I was going to paint them in gold...but decided on white instead to make them stand out a little bit more...I had also thouht of putting them on the side (much larger in a pretty font)...but no one else in the neighborhood has that...so I did not...

~Have a lovely day!

...link to previous post...4.17...Delicious Vegan Food we ate...