Ball Chair Project Pt. 23....... Parts Are Being Painted!...... Finally!

When I started this project I never dreamed that it would be as long of a process that it has become. From fiber glassing to electrical to upholstery it continues to be a challenge at almost every step of the way.  This has also included prepping the fiberglass parts for paint.  Lots of sanding would be an understatement.  More like LOTS AND LOTS of sanding and then you might come close to what I have been up to for the past couple of weeks and I still am not finished.  But with all the sanding I was finally rewarded just a little bit this morning when I started spraying paint on to the base for the chair.

I am very pleased at this point with the efforts that I put into the sanding of just these two parts alone to get them into shape for painting.  Not that I am content with the fact that the paint itself is perfect yet but I see no problem with correcting what flaws I see after a little more sanding and a couple more coats of paint. The larger piece in the photo above is the base for the chair and the smaller piece is the inner mount for the ball itself.  You can see some runs in the paint in the inner cavity of the larger piece but these will not be seen once the inner mount is in place. So no problem there.

The inner mount that you see here has a slot in it to be able to install the bolts that will connect it to the ball portion of the chair once it has been painted and assembled.  The only portion of this piece that will be seen once it is mounted into the base is actually only the upper outer lip of this dish shaped piece.  This is the reason I did not bother painting the lower portion of the part.  The inner surface of the dish could have been left unpainted as well but I thought "What the heck.  Just paint it." There will be a rubber gasket between this inner mount and the ball so the paint on neither assembly will be damaged once the chair is assembled.

These last couple of photos of the base really show off how smooth I was able to get the outer surfaces of this part.  Again it all boiled down to lots of sanding starting with 80 grit and going up to 600 grit wet sanding over and over again.  So if I can do as well with the rest of the parts of the painting of the chair I will be a happy camper.

  I had to throw this photo in just because of how it looks at this point.  This is the dome portion of the ball chair where a white star on a blue field will be painted.  I will show you how I plan on getting that put together once I get this part completely painted white first. 

  In the photo above I had primed the part in gray primer and thought it was smooth enough to paint.  So I painted it white and let it dry.  After I had looked at the part again I had noticed that it was not quite as even as I had hoped for. I went back to more wet sanding to even things out more to my liking.  As I sanded through the white paint primer started appearing again which was ok as I knew I was getting the part where I wanted it to be and the end result is this gray and white dome.  Interesting pattern don't you think.  It looks to be very smooth and even now.  A couple of more coats of glossy white paint and this part will be ready to be prepped to put a star on it for the Captain America ball chair. 
  I'll post all about that process in the coming weeks when I can find the time. In the meantime I will let these parts dry for a few days before either touching them up or putting my blessing on to them and move on to the remaining parts.  Lots or work still ahead but with that I can finally see my work load decreasing and my happy face appearing bigger every day. For those interested.... total hours of work so far is now at 458 hours.