I decided late yesterday since all of the painting on the revolver was now complete that I would give it a nice protective coat of paste wax as I do with nearly all of my carvings. Unfortunately, I discovered way too far into the process that the solvents in the wax attacks lacquer based paints.
The antique brass colored paint that I had applied to the trigger guard was extremely sensitive and much of it just came off in the rag. I guess that after a suitable amount of recovery time has expired -- not for the finish, but rather for my psyche -- I will carefully sand off the wax from the trigger guard and reapply the brass colored paint.
Cautionary Note to Self #2 - When storing a finished, but oddly shaped carving on the Mantle, do not prop it up but instead lay it flat.
You have probably heard of the corollary to Murphy's Law called "the Law of Selective Gravitation" which states that "A dropped tool will always land where it can do the most damage". Well, this is related. Last night I placed the revolver on the Mantle to "keep it out of harm's way". Instead of laying it flat where there was the risk of "perhaps" scraping it against the rough brick surface along the back, I propped it up in front of the clock. About 2 hours later, I heard a loud noise and tried to determine what had happened. Whether it was due to some localized seismic event or just a passing of some unhappy apparition, the revolver was on floor sporting a very nasty crack (see photo).
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| Location of Crack due to Fall from Mantle |
The glue job managed to savage the entire project. There is a small, barely visible scar left where I added the glue. I did have to sand the -- now misshapen -- hole a bit to get the rod back in place.
What this did is confirm that in order to ensure that the carving remains in one piece, I will definitely have to go ahead with I idea of placing the revolver in a "presentation" box. Manual fondling of the revolver is -- Apparently -- no longer a reasonable consideration.
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