Hello guys, I just finished some carvings with a new kind of wood and I’m really concerned about what I’m gonna do in order to sand these projects.
These results are weird to me since I always get really good results with other woods. I always do the finishing pass against the grain, should I try to go with the grain with this particular wood?
I tried my best to sand this horse with 220 grit sandpaper and it looks really good (in some parts), but no idea what I’m gonna do with the small details in the hair, let alone how to sand the last supper since it has a lot more little details… do you guys have any recommendations? Thanks.
Had a similar situation with a project once with a lot of fuzzies. I left the project on the machine after the last pass and then applied a coat of polyurethane. Left that to dry completely overnight, and then ran the last finishing pass a second time, which made a huge difference.
However, be aware that some of the polyurethane will soak in beyond the finishing pass and will be part of the finished piece, I.E. you won’t be able to stain evenly using this method.
That was my first thought too. Apply finish & cut again. If you were going to stain it, stain it first, let it dry really good. Apply a decent coat of finish & recut the finish pass. Brush to get the remaining fuzzies. Then apply a final finish coat.
Mixing stain, finish, recutting and finish is a formula for disaster. If you stain and finish and recut some of the stain and finish may or may not be cut off. So the areas where the stain/finish is cut off you can reapply the stain and eventually finish but you may make a big mess because the stain will not asorb properly around the edges where the finish is still in place. This could lead to a blotchy mess.
Applying the finish and machining might work ok because you can add more finish. The stain/finish/cutting should be carefully tried before just trying it on a long and expensive project. IMHO
My thought was that since the job is completely cut, the 2nd cut would not be removing anything other than the fuzzies that have now been encapsulated by finish, and would be more rigid for removal.
As long as the machine is cutting exactly where it did the first time, it shouldn’t get into the stain.
I would certainly want to test it on something representative.
Not for nothing but I’ve also had wood pieces warp on the bed overnight.
Specifically it was a very long running topo map and the piece was in a garage in the middle of a heat wave. So maybe the stars aligned to kill that project but it’s worth noting
Have you tried scotch brite the white pad? I use that to take off the wood fuzzies and it doesn’t change the shape of the wood like sanding. Kept those fine steps I had. Sorry didn’t take a pic of the all the fuzzies removed but it did the job.
Started using “widgets” to help with some of my Carbide create pro designs. it is a really powerful trick so I made a YouTube video on how to make widgets. soon I will post some more videos on examples of how to use Widgets. Really cool.
