Southeast Michigan Woodworkers

With my finishing of the hall table top I am finally getting to try out some new sanding products. After trying to do some light sanding between coats with my 400grit wet/dry paper I’ve been thinking there must be a better way. So I happened to see at Lowes, these 3M flexible rubbery sanding pads. I got to use it finally this morning as I buffed out the nibs. It’s the 400 grit pad and I used the small Detail Sanding Tool as a backer for it. It worked pretty well. A couple of light swipes across the finish and you can feel the nibs gone. You also get some nice white powrder on your hand. So just a heads up, it seems to work well and was much easier to use than the 400 grit wet/dry paper. The  rubbery flexibility is much nicer to be sure. So, 2nd coat on the table…one more Seal-A-Cell to go and then the final Arm-R-Seal begins. I wonder how many coats I should end up with on there. It is a table after all, but hopefully one that won’t see much use.

I spend the other night sanding down the table top. I ran the ROS at 120 and then 220. The sides I did by hand with a sanding block the same way. Smooth as butta after the sanding. Then I took it inside and did the dye. Eight drops of transtint vintage maple into a dixie cup of Zinser wax free shellac. I layered it on a bit thick since I knew I was going to be taking a sanding to it anyway. If it dried with some runs it would just come out.

Tonight I went to work sanding it down. I started out with just 220 grit, but it wasn’t doing the job. I moved back down to 120 and then repeated with 220. It sanded out pretty quickly and you could really tell how the end grain had soaked up the color. The maple really seems to sand down to such a glass smooth surface where the walnut always had a little grainy feel to it. I guess this is just part of the learning to work with the woods.

Of course with some good comes some bad. I noticed this with the walnut base. I find somehow during sanding/finishing I’m putting indentations into the wood. Small little divets. I also then found a couple of tearout places that didn’t come out. I don’t know how I missed it all the way up to now. I’m not sure what to do about it. I’ve already had the top thinner than I wanted. I think I’m going to just go with it. It’s very hard to see unless you’re all over it like I am sanding/finishing it. The finish actually helps hide it as it darkens the wood and with all that end grain doing funny effects. I’m just worried about how much sanding it would take to clean it all out and I don’t want to go back to the mill for have it run through the sander again.

So the first coat of Seal-A-Cell went on. It looks really good and I’m beyond psyched. I can’t wait to  get more coats on there and get to the Arm-R-Seal. I am worried about the sanding between coats, but this what learning is for.

Here are links to the before/after the dye stage.

Before / After