I must just be not getting it.  Maybe I just need some more time to overthink this.

 

 

I have read many posts about sanding to 220 before putting on a finish.  That's seems pretty standard. 

Then, I read some people sand the bare wood to 1000,2000, 3000 before putting on the finish.

Wet sanding - yup, I do that with a little danish oil, or finish, but this is where I'm not getting it.

With what grit(s) do you wet sand the bare wood to fill in the pores? 

Do you then dry sand it more before moving to the finish? 

 

At what point (grits) do you move from sanding bare wood, wet sand with something like oil,

or wet sand with a bit of finish, put on the finish, and then wet sand (with a lubricant of some kind)

to get the finish on the finish that you want?  

 

Simply put, when do you move from sanding bare wood to putting on the finish and sanding the finish to

the sheen you want?  

 

 

 

Thanks

There will be some difference in opinion on it, but I (almost) never sand bare wood past 180. If I'm wet sanding to fill the grain I'll use danish oil or wiping varnish and I still usually stay in the 180-220 range. Generally speaking, after the grain filling I will dry sand (after the finish cures enough) to smooth things out but again I seldom go beyond 180. There is another way to fill the grain with finish, and that is to apply several coats, let it cure, then sand it back (almost to bare wood). Then look for shiny spots, that's finish in the pores that haven't been filled yet. Keep it up until there are no shiny spots. This is usually more work than the alternatives. I've never used 1000 and up paper on wood. To finish the finish, you can wet sand as you described, but starting with a woven fabric pad (Scotchbrite) or possibly some pumice might give you the sheen you want. That's only my take on it...like I said there's a lot of ways to approach it.

Fred, thank you.  So, it sounds like you put more finishing effort into finishing the finish than trying to get the wood super smooth before putting a finish on it. 

I'm sure that wet sanding the wood with oil or wiping varnish comes out pretty nice before putting on a final finish

 

I spend far more time finishing my wood bowls and turnings than I do in creating them in the first place. So, this is where I have to learn to be more efficient.

 

Thanks,

I'm not a turner and it may be different for a bowl, wait for some more opinions.

Here's some information on this topic-

 

https://www.woodworkersjournal.com/sanding-woodturning-projects-with-a-lubricant/

 

https://www.aawforum.org/community/index.php?threads/wet-sanding.14089/

 

 

 

17 hours ago, Fred W. Hargis Jr said:

There will be some difference in opinion on it, but I (almost) never sand bare wood past 180. If I'm wet sanding to fill the grain I'll use danish oil or wiping varnish and I still usually stay in the 180-220 range. Generally speaking, after the grain filling I will dry sand (after the finish cures enough) to smooth things out but again I seldom go beyond 180. There is another way to fill the grain with finish, and that is to apply several coats, let it cure, then sand it back (almost to bare wood). Then look for shiny spots, that's finish in the pores that haven't been filled yet. Keep it up until there are no shiny spots. This is usually more work than the alternatives. I've never used 1000 and up paper on wood. To finish the finish, you can wet sand as you described, but starting with a woven fabric pad (Scotchbrite) or possibly some pumice might give you the sheen you want. That's only my take on it...like I said there's a lot of ways to approach it.

I'm pretty much in line with Fred.  I don't turn either.

 

I always sand between layers of finish, generally with P400 sandpaper and/or light gray Scotch-Brite pads.  I find that the first coat of shellac raises the grain a bit and that water-borne finishes and oil-based varnishes benefit from a smoothing out (raised grain, settled dust, uneven spots, and adhesion bite).

 

About the only time I've "wet sanded" is when one of my customers opened a new store and started carrying very high gloss finishes.  They were a  pain.   I usually had to go thru 3 to 5 levels of abrasives and buffing to get that "see the nose hairs" gloss and then hope that the delivery guys didn't just throw on a moving blanket that hadn't been cleaned in 5 years or that the in-store "decorators" didn't start sliding around the decorations on top.   That store opened in 2007 and did not survive the 2008 financial recession.

Thanks for this.  I had seen this video before and still struggle with the thought of putting a finish over something that has had wax rubbed into it.

So, in my older, bolder days, I just contacted Mike Peace to ask some more questions. Wow, I got a response in less than an hour.  He really is serious about

helping people. While he has a minimal charge for teaching at his place, I see that he doesn't charge wounded warriors.  

 

I'm off to buy some diatomaceous earth.  Mike did a later video with a digital microscope to show all the little fossilized grasses and stuff that makes the grit.  It's a lot of material in the bag, yet I will use it for its original purpose as well, killing ants and crawling insects.

Boy some differences of opinion...wet sanding before a finish is applied....Not me for I blow it all as clean as I can get it before the finish goes on and I use a very fine bristle brush to help un clog all the loose stuff...as I blow.

Well, I'm a believer.

I watched the videos online to find that the suggested homemade abrasive paste concoctions all have almost exactly the same ingredients and proportions of

beeswax, mineral oil and diatomaceous earth. It took me some time to be able to say "diatomaceous" or figure out what it is.  (Fossilized grasses with lots of nano cutting surfaces).

 

I made a batch yesterday and tried it today. I have a number of plates and bowls finished with Danish oil, then, gloss poly, satin poly, and Waterlox, all that needed some next step to finish the finish beyond what I had done - combinations of wet sanding with finish or paint thinner up to 2000 grit.  

 

The abrasive paste works really well on finished surfaces.  I found the abrasiveness to be quite uniform, something I wasn't sure of from a pile of fossilized grasses.

After using it, I cleaned it all off, cleaning the wax/mineral oil/earth mixture off. I will put on a final, thin coat of wax and call it good, actually, quite satisfactory.

 

For my purposes, I am putting it on bowls and plates on the lathe.  For a few, I just held them in my hand and scrubbed the paste around with a paper towel to see if I really needed a turning lathe to make it work well.  Either worked just fine.

 

Thanks to those who have helped me think through this.

 

As I get to sanding raw wood before an oil finish, I will try this paste on that. I am still a ways away from using it before a lacquer or water based finish as I am unsure about putting them over something with wax and oil that does not dry.  Some have said they don't have a problem, so it may be worth the try.