Tiki Bar Weekend

We thought about devoting our weekend to volunteering for some "cause," whereby we could contribute to making the world a better place.

In the end, we decided to continue working on Project Drinkin' Spot - that is, the tiki bar.

If you recall, when we last visited the subject, we had a structure, but nothing more.

This weekend, we wrestled the beast out of the garage and stained it.



Okay. The stain was a little dark, when I first took it in, but I had to keep remembering that:
A) there's varnish to come
B) and bamboo

So we turned our attention to the uprights. We'd been thinking of using beer bottle labels and lacquering them on, but that just wasn't doing it, vision-wise, so we went another direction.



Can't beat rope (note to self - requires roughly 40 feet of 3/4 inch manila rope to tightly wind 2.5 feet of 4x4). Once that was done, we lined the bartop itself with a 3/8 inch manila rope, then added "pieces of flair," and began the epoxy party.



This epoxy stuff (comes in a box, two bottles that need to be combined, costs an arm and a leg) is great. Totally transparent, I've got four boxes on, and can read through it. Good stuff. You have to be aware of dust (and avoid it for about three hours), and you have to watch out for bugs. And, as you can see above, you can apply a little heat to remove any bubbles.

All of these steps, of course, work best when performed with beer.



Remaining steps include another couple packages of epoxy, installing the bamboo (it's cut to size already), lacquering the bits that still need it, and then - the thatch. That one is going to be an adventure.