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Do you sand too much too?

Rennie Heuer

Rennie Heuer

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When I went to put the finish on my small A&C clocks I was unable to get as dark a finish as I wanted. I thought I had followed all the same steps as I have in the past, but went back over my process just to be sure. My finish consists of a dye in DNA followed by dark walnut danish oil. There has always been the old saw, "when you think you're done sanding, sand some more", but I believe there is a flaw in that logic and I have fallen prey to it too often.

Retracing my steps I decided I was sanding too much, or, more accurately, to too fine a grit. I routinely begin with 150, and follow up with 180 and then 220 on a ROS. I believe my issue with not getting good penetration from the tinted oil is going beyond 180. I think I should stop there, or maybe sooner?

I went back and reread some of the finishing processes I've used in the past and found a disparity in final grit choices. In essence, when you want a finish to go deep, stop sanding at 150 or 180. Going further has the effect of 'polishing' the wood and making it resistant to penetrating stain. The exception seems to be on woods such ad curly or birds eye maple. There the experts seem to push to 220 if you are just using an oil (natural danish oil or BLO).

Finishing has always been a bit of a mystery to me, but I think I am sure of one thing - I probably sand too much.
 
I generally go to 220, but I HAND sand with the 220 after using the ROS. I think hand sanding with the grain, in addition to removing ROS swirl marks, may open the wood's pores a bit.
 
Jim DeLaney said:
I generally go to 220, but I HAND sand with the 220 after using the ROS. I think hand sanding with the grain, in addition to removing ROS swirl marks, may open the wood's pores a bit.
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My experience is that sanding with a ROS seems finer to the touch than hand sanding with the same grit. Because of that, I finish with hand sanding before using dye. I suspect that what grit you finish with, before using dye, many depend on what wood you are using.
 
I do read a lot about people who stop at 220 or even 150. As the wood gets closer to being burnished as opposed to having a tactile scratch pattern it is going to become less absorbent. I still have a test board of oak around the shop somewhere that I laid out like:

test board.jpg

I prepped each section of the board differently. I drew with a felt pen to clarify the sections, label them and applied different finishing protocols. It still comes in handy as a reminder as my memory of things can morph over time. There is nothing so heartbreaking as inspecting your work as the topcoat cures only to see scratch patterns visible in the material below the surface.

When I am going to color material I tend to use dyes that I mix myself which gives me a lot of control over the final color. I also (generally, there's always exceptions) tend to take the surface very close to my end result before applying finish. Probably like most of us A&C fans, I take the end grain a level or two higher than the face and edge surfaces.

For the things I am doing I do not consider 150 or even 220 to be "smooth". A 220 grit sanded surface would never really match a hand planed surface and most of what I do falls under the hand plane in one place or another prior to completion. I would like to get more into spraying top coats and am sure my protocol would be different for that. The thicker film calls for a different surface prep but, this is true for brushing as well.

All in all a somewhat useless set of pre-coffee ramblings; sorry about that.
 
I hand sand after ROS.

I have found that hard, dense close grained woods like Maple do not absorb stains if sanded too fine - like 220. I don't stain often and I don't use a lot of Maple, but I find that 150 is a stopping point if staining. You can always lightly sand 220 afterwards.

Transtint dye is better to color the wood like Maple. If the color you use is not dark enough you can put a drop or two of black. Water is also a choice with transtint, dries slower and allows penetration a little longer.

After Transtint, you can still follow up with some stain. You can fade out and shadow with the transtint and stains. A little creativity with this and the clocks you did can achieve a little different glow.

I did this on my Wolf Box. If you go to those pictures you can see the fading I did.
 
Though the vast majority of my work is turning, this issue can be a problem here as well. Instead of using a ROS it's a 2" or 3" sanding disc. And various grits of paper. I know as a fact from when I built furniture you can sand a piece of wood too fine if you want the finish to properly penetrate the wood. I try not to go beyond 220 grit on a bowl. Of course the bowl is spinning while I am sanding but if I go much more than that the walnut oil I use starts having a hard time penetrating. This I find is mainly with my hardwoods. While sanding pecan and such when the wood starts to shine, I stop sanding. Then I give it a good coat of walnut oil and then apply whatever finish I am going to use after about 2 hours or so. Now another reason I don't get too carried away with sanding is most of my customers like to still feel the grain of the wood in my bowls, so I try to accommodate the best that I can.
 
The other thing I keep telling myself (I wish I listen to myself more often :rofl:) is that:

ROS = Rounds Over Stuff.

The ROS was never meant to flaten anything, it is meant to smooth things. How often I catch myself using the ROS to sand the ends of boards! :eek:

I really need to get better acquainted with my sanding blocks. :doh:
 
Like Dave Hoskins, my wood work is 99% lathe work. On bowls I rough sand with a Neiko 55 degree angle drill/sander... once it's relatively smooth, I switch to holding the sand paper in my hand against the wood... I start with 100, 120, 150 and 180... sometimes I'll go on to 220, bur rarely further.... my finish of choice is not an oil, but a sanding sealer followed with a wipe on poly.

My pepper mills are all sanded by hand, at high speed, starting with 80 or 100 -- depending on how well I've done my turning, then the same sequence but usually on up to 320.... followed with my sanding sealer in two coats, then smooth with yorkshire grit, then 4-5 coats of wipe on poly.... I don't use any dyes, so can't speak to how they react with my woods.
 
Rennie Heuer said:
The other thing I keep telling myself (I wish I listen to myself more often :rofl:) is that:

ROS = Rounds Over Stuff.

The ROS was never meant to flaten anything, it is meant to smooth things. How often I catch myself using the ROS to sand the ends of boards! :eek:
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I replaced the pads on my ROS with hard pads long ago. I often say I don't use a ROS often and here's an example. I had the occasion to want a softer pad on the ROS but, when I went to get the original pads I had swapped out long ago . . . they were harder than the 'hard' pads due to age :D.

Rennie Heuer said:
I really need to get better acquainted with my sanding blocks. :doh:
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I have (read this in an 'El Guapo' accent from 'Three Amigos') a plethora of blocks, pads, and all sorts of doo-hickys to wrap abrasives around or stick them to.

Sanding blocks.jpg
 
More "mostly turning" experience here. If I'm applying dye to a turned piece, I'll usually do it after the 220 or 320 grit sanding, but then I'll go straight to 400 for a very light knock-down of the fibers before applying finish.

When I sand my turned pieces, the finish sanding is almost always done with a 2" ROS. Sometimes I'll have the piece spinning about 50 RPM, which is as slow as my lathe will go. Other times the lathe will be turned off, and I'll just use it to hold the piece while I'm sanding. There are occasions when I'll hand sand with the lathe spinning faster, or use a right-angle drill with 2" or 3" sanding disks, but that's only when I'm trying to get rid of a lot of material, never for finish sanding. I don't like seeing the concentric sanding scratches that happen when just holding a piece of sandpaper on a spinning piece of wood. (Even if you move the paper around a lot and go as fine as 320 or 400, I guarantee I can see the scratch marks.) I usually sand to 400 or 600 grit for "art" pieces. I'm pretty anal about my sanding, and it's not uncommon for me to spend more time sanding and finishing a piece than it does to turn it. When I make a utilitarian piece meant to be used, not just looked at, I'll generally stop sanding at 220 or 320, but I'll still get rid of any sanding (or tool) marks I can see.

For the finish, I like using an oil/varnish blend like Minwax Antique Oil or Formby's "Tung Oil Finish". (Quotation marks because there's a chance there's no tung oil in the stuff.) If I'm going for a high-gloss "grand piano" finish, I'll follow up the oil/varnish with spray lacquer, wet sanding, and buffing wheels with one or two compounds, then wax.
 
I failed to mention something earlier. On flat work, which I did a lot of before I started turning, I had bought a Dewalt (forgot the model number) ROS. Had trouble all the time with it leaving swirls in the wood. Saw a demonstration at Woodcraft on the Festool Rotex sander and was impressed. Of course the price was impressive as well. Ended up buying the 5" and have absolutely no regrets. Does not leave swirls. Extremely strong. Has dust port for a vac hose. The discs that you get from Festool has holes that align with the holder's holes for dust collection. I can actually put probably about 1/2 of my weight on it and it does not bog down at all even after 10-11 years. Not plugging for Festool but I am just saying that if you do a lot of flat work, you might seriously consider the investment. They are made in Germany which speaks something for the engineering.
 
another vote for hand sanding after ROS,, and if clear coating with no stain or dye, you can stop sooner than you think. on those end tables a while back i posted i had to resand the panels to get the stain to tone corecctly. again the burnishing affect of not paying attention to my proper sanding schedule.. but i did wake up before the top coat.
 
Dave Hoskins said:
I had bought a Dewalt (forgot the model number) ROS. Had trouble all the time with it leaving swirls in the wood. Saw a demonstration at Woodcraft on the Festool Rotex sander and was impressed. Of course the price was impressive as well. Ended up buying the 5" and have absolutely no regrets. Does not leave swirls. Extremely strong. Has dust port for a vac hose. The discs that you get from Festool has holes that align with the holder's holes for dust collection. I can actually put probably about 1/2 of my weight on it and it does not bog down at all even after 10-11 years. Not plugging for Festool but I am just saying that if you do a lot of flat work, you might seriously consider the investment. They are made in Germany which speaks something for the engineering.
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I have to say I skeptical about the difference in ROS sanders. I've had a dewalt and Bosch. I thought they worked pretty good. Still, had some issues with swirls. Then a year ago or so there was some kind of crazy deal online for the festool pro 5. I think probably a 'low end' festool. The difference was pretty amazing actually. Not nearly as much vibration transmitted to my hand, it seemed like it just sanded things faster and more controllably with far fewer swirl marks. Like you, not plugging for Festool, but it was an eye opening experience.
 
Dave Hoskins said:
... Not plugging for Festool but I am just saying that if you do a lot of flat work, you might seriously consider the investment...
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Brent Dowell said:
...Like you, not plugging for Festool, but it was an eye opening experience.
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I've never had the chance to try any Festool stuff, but from what I've seen posted by people who have, I get the impression they're another one of those tools that costs a lot out of the gate, but put a smile on your face every time you use it. Sort of like Powermatic/Oneway/Robust lathes and Stihl/Husqvarna chain saws. :thumb:
 
Well, I am sure I will be stopping at lower grits and hand sanding everything before finish from this point on. Now, Festool. That's a big nut to crack. New is out of my budget for now and they don't often come up for sale used, but I'll keep and eye open and start salting away some cash.
 
I noticed on some of the oak signs Luke made for Christmas that some were turning out darker than others. On some he sanded to 150 and others he sanded to 220. He was using walnut gel stain and the 150 signs were noticeably darker than the 220.

I can't remember if it was an article or interview with I think Christian Becksvoort. He was talking about cherry and said someone had asked how he dealt with blotching. He said he never had a problem with blotching. He said most people don't sand to a high enough grit in cherry. Again if I remember right he said he sands to a minimum of 400 grit with cherry and never has a blotching problem.

That was one of those aha moments for me. After that I started noticing how grit coarseness affected stain / dye..... I guess penetration.
 
Yeah, Vaughn! Like owning a Stihl. Once you have a Festool, you will definitely smile when using it. Back when I bought my 5" Rotex at Woodcraft I was wondering about spending that much money. They are pricey, for sure. I guess they are like Stihl. "Buy one for life!". Rennie, I ain't rich either. Had to eat a lot of beans and tortillas to offset the cost of it, but it certainly was worth it.
 
Dave Hoskins said:
Yeah, Vaughn! Like owning a Stihl. Once you have a Festool, you will definitely smile when using it. Back when I bought my 5" Rotex at Woodcraft I was wondering about spending that much money. They are pricey, for sure. I guess they are like Stihl. "Buy one for life!". Rennie, I ain't rich either. Had to eat a lot of beans and tortillas to offset the cost of it, but it certainly was worth it.
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I went through two ridgid 6" ROS before I bought my Festool 150-5. I had a big walnut slab that I was going to be sanding and some shop money saved up. So I bit the bullet and got one. It hurt.....a lot. But I'm glad I did it. Not only is it a great sander, but the dust collection is really good too.

Rennie I like your

ROS = round over stuff. That made me laugh! I don't know how many times I've said to myself "You idiot! Why did you do that! Now you'll have a gap where those go together"!
 
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