The Sanding Blues

Does the thought of sanding a piece of wood bring tears to your eyes? Well, that’s what safety glasses are for. Just kidding. Do you dislike sanding because it’s boring and tedious? Do you think it is monotonous and mundane? Okay, enough trying to impress you with my vocabulary. Do you despise the task of sanding? Yes? Well, I used to.

Sanding can be very boring, but when done correctly, it can be an art form. When using a power sander, you risk leaving scuff marks or can wind up taking off too much in one area. Sometimes, you can even take off not enough. There are several key elements to sanding. The first of which is to gradually go from a coarse grit sandpaper to a fine grit sandpaper.

When I was a teenager, my dad saw me sanding a piece of wood. He noticed I went from an 80 grit piece of sandpaper to a 320 grit piece. He told me that I should have used a medium grit piece first. He explained that by not doing so, I would be sanding on the wood for the rest of the day before it would get smoothed out. Not to mention wasting a lot of fine grit sandpaper. Then he explained to me about the second key element. ALWAYS wipe off the sawdust between sanding. If you don’t, some of the sand that comes off the paper can scratch grooves into the wood. This can ruin your finished look.

The third key element to sanding is to sand with the grain of the wood. If you don’t, you will risk tearing small pieces off. Yes, I have done this….several times. When this happens, your piece will never look just right.

If you take the right mental approach, sanding can be less boring and more relaxing. It can become like a form of meditation. So don’t get distressed and be happy. After all, you are making SAWDUST!

Don’t Paint Me!

Do you have an old cabinet or dresser that was painted? What did you think when you first saw it? Did you think it was made out of scrap pieces? Did you ever wonder what the wood looked like underneath, or did you say “I’ll just repaint it”? One of my current projects is refinishing my wife’s dresser. It is a 1940s Art Deco, Waterfall four drawer dresser. When she inherited it from her grandmother, it had already been painted a gaudy pink. Some people might call this color “titty pink”. Here is a nice little picture of it. Well, the top drawer anyways.

Look at that grain pattern! How could anyone hide such a beautiful design underneath that hideous paint? I have been using a cabinet scraper and a decent putty knife to scrape off the paint, without marring the wood. This drawer front has a walnut veneer with mahogany trim. I absolutely love the diamond shaped pattern of the walnut! I could have used a chemical stripper, but I don’t want to risk damaging the wood…or my lungs. I just can’t stand the smell of that stuff.

Once I removed all of the paint, I wiped it down thoroughly, with a lint-free cloth. After this, I began the assessment phase of the project. My first step is to determine what kind of condition the finish is in and what type is it. Well, it appears to be oiled and a thin laquer sealer. The laquer was pretty much taken off with the paint when I scraped off the paint. So, I just sanded this puppy down.

Before I sanded the drawer, I assessed any repairs that needed to be made. Lucky for me, all I had to do was re-glue a couple of the joints. They were pretty lose. After the glue had dried, next came the sanding portion.

I started off with a 320-grit sanding pad. Let me just note that it was all sanded by hand. No power sanders were used! After using the 320-grit pad, I used #0000 fine steel wool over the entire drawer. Next, I wiped it down (twice) with a lint-free cloth. Make sure that you ALWAYS wipe down the piece after sanding, even if you are just going to a finer grit. Once I finished with the steel wool, I sanded the face of the drawer with an extra fine sanding pad (the equivalent of 1200 grit sandpaper). Here it is.

Look at that shine! Now isn’t that just beautiful? Well, I’m not done yet!

The next step is to finish it. The wood seemed to be pretty dry. So, I applied two coats of tung oil. Allowing at least a day for the oil to soak into the wood, then wiping of the excess. After several days of letting the oil do it’s thing, I applied three coats of a wipe-on polyurethane finish. I prefer to use a paper towel for this. No special reason behind this, it’s just my preference. I’m weird like that.

Don’t forget to sand and wipe down the piece in between each coat! Yes, I’ve made that mistake before. Here is the final piece!

Well, okay, it’s only the right half of the whole drawer. But still, that looks pretty damn gorgeous to me. I love the brass fittings at the ends of the drawer pull! Like I said at the beginning of this post, how could you paint over something this beautiful?

I hope you enjoyed this post and learned something new. Have a great day!

“Sawdust therapy”

Do you ever have one of those days where you just get really stressed out? Where it seems no matter what you do, everything just goes to hell in a hand basket? Of course you do, everyone has those kind of days. Maybe it’s your boss riding you about getting some report finished. It could be the kids constantly fighting over who’s turn it is to play the video game console. You got stuck in rush hour traffic in front of somebody who is horn crazy. No matter what it is, you are completely stressed out and feel like you want to snap.

Just take a deep breath and relax.

Do you feel better now? Yeah, me neither. When I get to feeling this way, I need a therapy session. I don’t mean going and talking about your feelings to some namby-pamby therapist, who charges you a days pay for 15 minutes of their time. I mean a real therapy session! “Sawdust therapy”! I mean going out into the garage or workshop and making a huge mess, while sweating your butt off. Sometimes, my therapy sessions might involve a beer. If it does, then absolutely NO POWER TOOLS!!!

“Sawdust therapy” is great! You can grab a hand saw and cut on a piece of wood to release some of the aggression you might be feeling. If there are a lot of little things bugging you, you can just chisel out some grooves for joints. If you are feeling down, depressed or sad, you can just grab some sandpaper (starting with coarse grit and working to extra fine) and slowly sand those feelings away. Hey, it works for me! Those pieces being cut, chiseled or sanded away are all of the negativity leaving me. All I end up with is a peaceful feeling and a finished product. How is that for multi-tasking?

Although, if you prefer to talk to a therapist, well, that’s up to you. I prefer my “sawdust therapy”.