Jekyll and Hyde
James Watriss
>It never fails to amaze me.
You spend days, weeks, even months in this case, tinkering, futzing, and working on a piece. One minor detail after another that has to get taken care of, a little thing here, a little thing there... and soon you're more than willing to let the monster just escape than finish taming the damned thing. But eventually you get it all done, and it's finishing time. And the piece you know so intimately disappears.
Colors darken and get richer, dull sanded wood gets all nice and shiny, and a lot of the little imperfections get glossed over. (or they show up even more :P ) But in the end, it's still an entirely different thing than you're used to seeing. The monstrosity seems to have disappeared and left this thing that doesn't look half bad, when you think about it.
In this case it's my new tool chest. Courtesy of some potassium dichromate and some waterlox, the color I'm used to seeing (pinkish tan mahogany) is something else entirely (maroonish brown) and a lot of the little things I was so irritated at seeing are now hidden from view. And as long as the work is as good as I think it is, it'll stay hidden from view until I eventually forget about it.
Just when I was ready to pitch the whole thing down the stairs and get a plastic stanley tool box, too.
