Dragon Faucet

I enjoy hands-on creativity much more than digital projects, so I needed a break from being stuck in video-editing mode trying to document all of Halloween 2014! I found this cool dragon faucet on Amazon, so I waited until I had enough points from my Amazon Visa until I could order it for absolutely free!

There is an oil-rubbed bronze version of this dragon faucetbut it’s so dark you can’t see detail very well, plus there was a vote for a more copper finish but that wasn’t for sale. The antique brass version was slightly cheaper, then I did my own hand-rubbed finish using my copper gilding paint, brushing it on first, then immediately rubbing some off gently with a paper towel, carefully leaving any edges feathered to blend in with the next pass of paint. This technique probably wouldn’t work as well on a shiny finish, but since the original finish was a satin finish with slightly grained texture, the paint attached pretty well. The new finish probably won’t hold up to real scrubbing, but out on the wetbar it shouldn’t need any. I have tried spray varnish before over this paint but it turned it pink. I tried some vegetable-oil and wax based counter protector but that rubbed off the finish, so I’ll leave it with the copper exposed. We shall see how quickly the finish rubs off the knobs.

The dragon faucet was too tall and without a sink plunger so I couldn’t use it in my guest bathroom, but it was perfect for my patio wetbar sink! When I built the wetbar in 2010, I bought a fairly inexpensive oil-rubbed bronze faucet that matched the copper sink patina pretty well, and had a nice tall spigot for filling bottles when necessary. However that required two holes, so I only drilled two holes in my EcoTop counter scrap. Since this dragon faucet is all in the main shaft, I needed a coverplate (also for free points on Amazon!) plus I needed to drill a new center hole. I knew from the first time around that EcoTop is so hard that it takes a lot of power to get a jigsaw or a paddle bit to get all the way through it, so I had my good battery all charged and ready to go…but it still pooped out before it was finished, and that was probably 30 minutes of solid drilling, as my sore shoulders will attest today! I took a break while my battery recharged (my old batteries even fully-charged couldn’t spin the bit enough to bother), got the hole all the way through, cleaned up all the fluffy mess above and below the counter, then finally got the new dragon faucet installed! I think it looks great, both with flash and without! Now I think I’ll have to add some more dragon accessories to the wetbar and patio area…hmm….