can you sand to 'fine'?

Brian Altop

Member
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274
Location
Tacoma, WA
Can you sand the wood to to high of a grit? If the wood is sanded to 320 or 400 so that the wood is kinda glossy, will it still take and hold a finish like waterlox or tongue oil with no problems or should you stop at 150 or 220?

Thanks,

Brian
 
I sand almost all my turned pieces to 600 grit before applying any finish. So far I've not had any problems with getting it to stick to the wood, and with penetrating finishes like tung oil finish (wipe-on varnish, similar to Waterlox) it still soaks in and darkens the wood the way I want it to.
 
Chuck When I do a hand rub job on my flint locks with oil I will dampen the wood and blow dry w/hair dryer, sand up to 600 and repeat the process until the grain dose not rise.
 
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Chuck When I do a hand rub job on my flint locks with oil I will dampen the wood and plow dry, sand up to 600 and repeat the process until the grain dose not rise.

Amen to the "repeat" for doing fine finishes on muzzle loading rifles. A large part of the cost of having a custom rifle built is the time devoted to the process Dave describes. It is a labor of love.
BTW, many pen makers sand to Micro Mesh 12,000 (about 4,000 regular). I forget who or which forum, but a really good pen maker with finishes to die for said he only goes to 400 (regular) grit because there is no real improvement beyond that. Looking at his finishes, that is not a debatable statement.
 
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