# What Grit Sand Paper After Planing Before Staining?



## Wood4Brains (Jul 25, 2012)

So I have planed some cherry wood posts for a bed I am fixing. I have managed to plane them smooth (more or less - I need to practice my planing more, apparently).

So before I stain them, what grit sand paper should I use? I assume it would be a higher grit since they are already pretty smooth from planing.


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## woodnthings (Jan 24, 2009)

*there are 2 schools of thought*

sand from 100 to 150 to 180 or 220.

Or don't sand at all, but use a cabinet scraper....old school.

Read some of these:
http://search.yahoo.com/search?ei=utf-8&fr=ytff1-tyc-inbox&p=sanding%20vs%20scraping%20wood&type=

Depending of the quailty of your planing skills, your work may be left with a smooth surface where the wood fibers have been cleanly sheared. Unless you sand in a straight line with a sanding block with the grain direction, sanding marks will show to some extent. Sanding abrades the wood fibers, rather than shearing them off cleanly, so you have to work your way up the grit scale to remove the previous swirl marks if you are using a ROS, random orbit sander. 
After the finish is on, and has dried you can sand with a fine grit like 400 or 600 with some water or mineral spirits to get a smooth finish. Buffing with a compound will make it mirror smooth.

If you use a slower drying finish like a poly, you may get dust specks in the dried finish, at least I do. I then use my cabinet scraper to just kiss those nibs off a leaving a very smooth surface.


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## Steve Neul (Sep 2, 2011)

Grunkle Stan said:


> So I have planed some cherry wood posts for a bed I am fixing. I have managed to plane them smooth (more or less - I need to practice my planing more, apparently).
> 
> So before I stain them, what grit sand paper should I use? I assume it would be a higher grit since they are already pretty smooth from planing.


 When you surface wood it may appear smooth however there are lateral marks on the wood where each cut of the knife shaved it. These mill marks need to be sanded off and how you sand it depends a lot on how you are equipped. I use a belt sander with a 80x belt to sand these marks off. Then I use a random orbital sander with 100x sandpaper and then a final sand with 180x sandpaper. If the wood is soft I sand it again with 220x sandpaper because softer wood shows swirl marks made with the orbital sander.


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## Wood4Brains (Jul 25, 2012)

Question:

Wouldn't the hand planing remove those marks? Or are they too deep?


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## firemedic (Dec 26, 2010)

Grunkle Stan said:


> Question:
> 
> Wouldn't the hand planing remove those marks? Or are they too deep?


Yes they will.

I don't sand anymore prior to finishing or sealing. A use a smoother for the most part but also use scrapers quite a bit too depending on the lumber /grain.

One thing that would help with your problem would be to ease the corners of the plane's iron - that will prevent marks from edges of the iron. Basically a very light camber.


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## BZawat (Sep 21, 2012)

Steve Neul said:


> When you surface wood it may appear smooth however there are lateral marks on the wood where each cut of the knife shaved it. These mill marks need to be sanded off and how you sand it depends a lot on how you are equipped. I use a belt sander with a 80x belt to sand these marks off. Then I use a random orbital sander with 100x sandpaper and then a final sand with 180x sandpaper. If the wood is soft I sand it again with 220x sandpaper because softer wood shows swirl marks made with the orbital sander.


Dude what kind of planing/surfacing are you doing of you need to belt sand out the machine marks???? That's making a ton of work for yourself. Only time I have used a belt sander on what would become a finished face is to level/flatten a surface too big to work otherwise. 

Eager to receive a Stanley No 5 that Dave Paine restored to get me into the hand plane world. I am in the middle of restoring a craftsman No 4 and a Stanley No 7 as well. My belt sander may just disappear in a few months if all goes well....

I experimented with a card scraper on my last project (in place of finish sanding) and I was so impressed by how much more figure showed than would have shown with sanding. Made a believer out of me. My goal is to phase out sanding as completely as possible.


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## Steve Neul (Sep 2, 2011)

BZawat said:


> Dude what kind of planing/surfacing are you doing of you need to belt sand out the machine marks???? That's making a ton of work for yourself. Only time I have used a belt sander on what would become a finished face is to level/flatten a surface too big to work otherwise.
> 
> Eager to receive a Stanley No 5 that Dave Paine restored to get me into the hand plane world. I am in the middle of restoring a craftsman No 4 and a Stanley No 7 as well. My belt sander may just disappear in a few months if all goes well....
> 
> I experimented with a card scraper on my last project (in place of finish sanding) and I was so impressed by how much more figure showed than would have shown with sanding. Made a believer out of me. My goal is to phase out sanding as completely as possible.


That is just standard proceedure to belt sand any surfaced wood in any shop I've ever worked at. Otherwise here and there you are likely to still have planer marks in the wood when you go to finish. I don't do much sanding anymore with a handheld belt sander. I use a stroke sander and it goes quick. The last two shops I worked for before opeing my business used a timesaver sander to sand the planer marks off.


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## BZawat (Sep 21, 2012)

Ok man. I'm just saying, all the lumber I use starts rough sawn & is machine jointed & machine planed, and goes directly from the planer to 150 grit on a ROS. And I've never had a problem with machine marks. I guess it depends on whether you're using a 12.5" planer like I am, or a 24" industrial planer. The machine marks are more pronounced on bigger machines. I don't think that's the case here though.


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## vursenbach (Apr 11, 2012)

woodnthings said:


> sand from 100 to 150 to 180 or 220.
> 
> Or don't sand at all, but use a cabinet scraper....old school.
> 
> ...


Agree 100% my $0.02

Sent from my iPhone using Wood Forum


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## HowardAcheson (Nov 25, 2011)

Steve Neul said:


> When you surface wood it may appear smooth however there are lateral marks on the wood where each cut of the knife shaved it. These mill marks need to be sanded off and how you sand it depends a lot on how you are equipped. I use a belt sander with a 80x belt to sand these marks off. Then I use a random orbital sander with 100x sandpaper and then a final sand with 180x sandpaper. If the wood is soft I sand it again with 220x sandpaper because softer wood shows swirl marks made with the orbital sander.


I believe the original poster is using a hand plane to surface his boards. If so, there will be no cross grain ripples such as you would have using an electrical planer.


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## Wood4Brains (Jul 25, 2012)

Hi Howie:

You are correct, sir. I am using hand planes: A #5 and a #3 to be specific.

so if you have been planing 2.5X2.5 Cherry posts with a number 3 hand plane, will I still need to sand them?

And I am sorry if I caused any confusion by not specifying I was using hand planes. My bad...


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## Steve Neul (Sep 2, 2011)

Grunkle Stan said:


> Hi Howie:
> 
> You are correct, sir. I am using hand planes: A #5 and a #3 to be specific.
> 
> ...


The confusion was my fault. I just misinterpreted your original post.


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## HowardAcheson (Nov 25, 2011)

In general, parts I have hand planed I do not sand. I might use a cabinet scraper to clean up a spot or surface but if the surface looks good, I'm ready to finish.

Let me say that there are circumstances where I might do some sanding. If I am going to use an oil finish, I will had sand with 180 then 220 grit. Also, you can control the depth of color if a pigment stain by varying the grit of the sandpaper. Hard wood like oak, maple and birch will be more deeply colored by sanding at 150 grit. Sanding to 220 grit will produce a less intense stain coloring.

If your planed items look good, you can hand sand them with 180 grit paper on a rubber or felt surfaces sanding pad. This should minimize any defects in your planing.


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## Wood4Brains (Jul 25, 2012)

Thanks.

I am probably going to stain / finish with Danish oul so even though it is cherry you suggest hand sanding with 180 and then 220 grit?


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