Watching paint dry

Having reglued, woodfilled and sanded the pot it was time to repaint the thing. The pot's original black painted finish was pretty worn but I think the finish was closer to satin than gloss or matt -whilst it was havily scuffed on the outside on the inside surface of the pot it will've been protected from contact so I was able to tell it wasn't a heavily scuffed gloss or worn matt surface. I wanted to come up with something close tothe original but without the unpleasant lead content. I opted for a can of Plastikote Satin Black spray paint. It should be pretty durable and protect the aged wood for a long time to come.

Typically I'd've taken it outside, sprayed it, left it to dry, resprayed it and repeated until completed. Unfortunately the best temperature to apply Plastikote is 15-20 degress Ceclius and as we're approaching the tailend of January the temperature is hovering at about zero. Knocking a few nails into a piece of wood to use as handles and sitting the pot on a plastic tub I took it outside, sprayed it then brought it inside to dry.

It looked pretty smart but the paint didn't seem to be properly drying properly. It was sticky and I was able to mark it with finger prints. Not quite the protective coating I'd been hoping for. It may've been because I was spraying in such cold temperatures I suppose. Anyway looking online a few people suggested addressing that by spraying an acrylic sealer the top. So that's what I did. Although to try and speed up drying times I let it dry in the utility room with a fan heater running and the window slightly open so the paint fumes had some place to go other than the rest of the house.

However when it was finally dry I decided the indentations from where I'd filled cracks in the wood were too blatant and needed a bit more work. Roughening the surface with 400 grit sandpaper and wiping it down with cotton wool and naptha I applied some more woodfiller, it was a lot easier having finally found an old sculpting tool that'd been knocking about the house for years.

That done I went through the sanding it again, spraying it, waiting for it to dry, respraying it, waiting for it to dry, and so on. After a few coats of paint I sprayed a couple of coats of sealer on it and called it a day.

With a little more filing and filler I could get the surface even better but I don't want to completely lose the instruments age. Spraying the last few coats of black and sealer indoors seems to have made a difference to to the paint drying. Just needs a little work on the tailpiece then I can look at putting it back together and adding some strings and a bridge.