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(11-14-2018, 07:23 AM)retrdwoodwkr Wrote: Depends on the wood and your final product. For oak, I usually sand bare wood to 220, then maybe very lightly wet sand between layers of wipe on urethane with 320. Right now I have a displaylay stand of red marblewood, very smooth and hard. Initial plan was to finish with shellac, French polish. Decided at last minute to switch to glossy wipe on poly. Not in love with the end product, looks fake. The reason I opted out of shellac was that the piece is small and would be hard to get around corners. My mistake, will go with shellac nest time.
For putting on the initial layers of shellac that don't require so much polishing ("bodying up" is one term for this), consider the spray can stuff. Unless you need to shift the color by using orange or garnet or whatever. The Zinser spray shellac is dewaxed. You can of course spray any other form of shellac too but sometimes the (non)rattle can is the fastest.
Don't sweat the petty things and don't pet the sweaty things. -- G. Carlin
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Back in my shelving pine and brown stain days, I'd do a belt sander run with 60 grit then to 100 or 120. The scratches from 60 grit absorbed the stain quite well and made the wood look better. The 60 grit work had to be done carefully or it would look blotchy, but with a little experimenting, it worked well enough at the time to cover the fact that I was using cheap wood. That's the only reason I can think of for starting out with a coarse grit.
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(11-15-2018, 05:22 PM)Bob Vaughan Wrote: Back in my shelving pine and brown stain days, I'd do a belt sander run with 60 grit then to 100 or 120. The scratches from 60 grit absorbed the stain quite well and made the wood look better. The 60 grit work had to be done carefully or it would look blotchy, but with a little experimenting, it worked well enough at the time to cover the fact that I was using cheap wood. That's the only reason I can think of for starting out with a coarse grit.
This is interesting to me. Would you stain after 60 grit before moving up, or would you just have some deeper scratches left by the 60 grit that the 100+ wouldn't take out?
I like pine and find that knotty pine in particular looks very nice, stained or otherwise, and I use it for quick or less permanent stuff (like steps for my daughter's first real bed). Radiata, on the other hand, can be very picky. I think the knots and character in knotty pine mask the uneven stain absorption.
