It’s a given that carefully sanding a wooden surface to make it clean and smooth greatly improves the look and feel of a finish. But can you take this too far? Apparently you can. Nick performs a simple experiment that demonstrates that “oversanding” — sanding past 220# — can prevent a finish/stain/adhesive from properly penetrating and bonding with the wood.
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42件のコメント
It's a given that carefully sanding wood to clean and smooth the surface greatly improves the look and feel of a finish. But can you take this too far?
Wood is composed of long cylindrical cells — think of drinking straws, arranged parallel to one another. As you sand, you cut through the walls of those cells closest to the surface and expose the interior. And as you work your way up through the sandpaper grits to make the surface smoother, the sawdust gets finer and finer. At some point it gets fine enough to begin
filling the exposed cells, and the sanding action packs it in tighter and tighter. On most woods, this happens somewhere past 180# or 220#.
At the same time, the sandpaper begins to load quickly. A few strokes and there is a enough fine sawdust packed between the grits to prevent them from cutting. At this point, you are burnishing the wood more than you are sanding it. The burnished surface feels smooth, but the cells are compressed and packed so tight that the finish/stain/adhesive no longer properly penetrates the wood. This, in turn, reduces the strength of the bonds it’s meant to make.
Cleaning the wood surface with a tack rag, mineral spirits, or compressed air only partly relieves the problem because the dust is so compacted. Wetting the surface with water does much better because it swells the sawdust and the burnished wood fibers, decompressing them. In fact, experienced finishers often do this to rid the surface of "whiskers'" — wood fibers that are only loosely attached at one end. But the second part of this technique is to sand with the last grit used after the surface has dried (to knock off the whiskers), and this gets to you right back to where you were.
There is one area of woodworking where this might be a boon rather than a problem – kitchen utensils. Craftsmen and craftswomen who make bowls, cutting boards, rolling pins, and other utensils worry about how to prevent wood from absorbing cleaning fluids, as well as vegetable and meat juices. Oversanding could help.
Inconceivable
220 – spray- 320- spray – 400 (special jobs)- wax.
The smoother the material the smoother the finish. You're not paining, you're staining the wood. The finished product will be smoother. So, if your goal is a deeper stain then whatever-you-say but when I'm making a desk or handrail that the customer will feel every day, I'll take a smother raw finish over a deeper stain every time. Just remember the end goal rather than the experiment you created.
I will keep this in mind when sanding wood in the future
Clean it
just a newbie asking a question, what to do when we want the resistance of higher grit for day to day use so the wood is more tough,but also want the finish to penetrate deeply?
I want this guy to teach me how the universe works. Feel like he just has a presentation style that could he could explain anything to anyone and it would make sense. Natural educator
good to know! thank you
A damp cloth will remove the 'imbedded' sawdust, also compressed air will remove it from both workpiece and sandpaper. I scroll saw small art pieces and sand them to 1500 – 4000, depending on size & shape. Most don't need a stain.
A YouTube short that I actually learned something from. Um….nice?
Guy's a ledgeeeee!
Lol I don't even care about wood, but this was pleasant to watch and to learn ! Good job, sir…
DOG!!! ❤❤❤
worked in a cabinet shop for 7 years, 220 is the right answer
Why do you sound like the guy who played the scribe of god in supernatural 😂
why do they put alluminum in sandpaper
Amazing explanation!!
Obviously someone has never worked on high grade walnut gunstocks . What you are referring to may be fine for hardwood floors and cabinets but hand oil finishing an $8000 piece of Turkish walnuts a different story.
Me who spend a whole year in my woodwork class sanding my Sawhorse.
I really like his hair
can you stain it and then sand it finer to a shine? or will doing so just rub off the stain?
Yes but polishing the wood is meant to be it's own "finish". In fact the highest end cabinet makers rarely sand at all and use razor sharp planes to perfectly cut the top layer of wood, revealing the grain structure and leaving it in a state to be lightly stained and sealed.
I feel you lose some of the chatoyance of the wood as well. When that fine dust clogs the grain of the wood it just doesnt seem to have the same depth even after wiping with alcohol or blowing it off with compressed air
The Einstein of wood
Sand to 220 stain it then sand to 1000 then stain it again
i make red oak table legs all day long, never go over 150 and the finish looks like glass.
Does wet sanding make a difference for this effect?
And yes I'm aware wet sanding wood is probably not a good idea.
Thank you, woodworking santa claus.
I think i just learned why my table is flaking 9 years late
As somebody who worked in a factory where wooden cabinetry gets finished, sanding with 600 grit sandpaper is just what we did. How they get around this issue of the sawdust filling in the spaces in the sandpaper is they just change out their sandpaper VERY frequently. Like 60 sheets an hour per person kind of frequently. The sandpaper they use with their sanders is velcro on the back so it's easy to rip off and replace quickly. But, they go through A LOT of sandpaper every day.
If you use a tacky cloth to wipe the wood, how would this influence the results?
Simplified: some people like natural wood that has a fine finish. Some people like the trashy look of cheaply stained crap. Me, id rather have smooth shiny wood, that takes a while for tongue oil to penetrate, than some crappy 180 grit wood with some cheesy stain on it. Its all perspective
Hi!
I like your videos.
I’m a fellow woodworker/finisher and just wanted to say thanks for the content and format you produce.
What about fine steel wool?
Is there a general guideline on the max grit sanding vs hardness of the wood? Say Pine vs Purpleheart?
This is very helpful and I didn't know I needed it until I watched it, thank you
Is there no way to get the fine dust out. Like with an air compressor
Videos like this make me reconsider my negative opinions on short form content. Some concepts, ideas, or demonstrations can be well served in a short amount of time. Shame theres so much slop that gets made.
this is knowledge from experience
400. That's your perfect number.
Fantastic job. 👍