Hand Sanding

Rich…I do hand sanding about 40% of the time on projects. I like to power sand, but I am carefull around edges and on details so I choose to hand sand. I hate sanding and find it a pain, but necessary. LOL.

-- Wayne - Plymouth MN

Rich,
Provocative question. For the past couple years, I have mostly made boxes. I have a similar array of sanders, but almost never use power to finish sand for smoothness. I do, however, find my little 10-20 drum sander essential equipment. With an 80 grit roll, I use it all the time for dimensioning and thicknessing. My 6-48 belt sander also has an 80 on it and sees a lot of use. All my mitering of lines, banding, and edging is done on a 10 inch disk sander with an 180 disk. When cutting box miters, I always do the finish miter on a 12 inch disk with an 80 grit. Abrasives are just much more precise than cutting tools.

For finishing, it’s almost always all hand sanding, in several steps. I do use scrapers a lot. Once in a great while, on a solid wood box, I may grab the 5” ROS to quickly level a small spot or the like, but never for bringing the box to final smoothness prior to finish. The finishing process is all very careful hand sanding.

Now, if I’m making furniture, that’s a different situation, and the finishing sanders will find more use. But, the hand sanding is always there too. I don’t hate sanding any more. I’ve come to accept it as an essential part of the building and finishing process. Sort of look forward to it…
Roger

-- "Everybody makes mistakes. A craftsman always fixes them." (Monty Kennedy, "The Checkering and Carving of Gunstocks", 1952)

I like final hand sanding as well, but had a minor screw-up on a Mission Style mirror frame I am working on and finishing. I did most of my final sanding with my 1/4 sheet power sander, outside. That is until the weather started misting, just a bit, but enough to water spot the piece. I went back inside the shop and decided to hand sand the water spots out and that is where I goofed up. I was sanding with the grain but inadvertently sanded across one of the 90-degree M&T joints. This went unnoticed until I started staining and applying my Tung Oil Finish. The fine scratches started showing up and it has taken me 6 coats and buffing with 0000 steel wool to hide.

Even with final hand sanding, I have to keep reminding myself, ”...watch your technique… watch your technique… watch your technique…”

;-)

-- HorizontalMike -- "Woodpeckers understand..."

I would rather my projects would come to the finish stage without sanding, but that’s not going to happen.

For me, there’s different kinds of sanding. Sanding wood and sanding finishes, for example.
With bare wood, I employ power sanding wherever it works, but there’s always some hand sanding necessary. Depending on the project, I might stop sanding at 200, but for a top I want to finish like glass, I go much further, trying to get the best surface possible. Scrapers are dandy for that.
Then, depending on the finishing materials, I might sand lightly between coats and finish off with a super fine paper like 1000. I’ve gone as far as 4000 and followed that with wax and 0000 steel wool. Then the softest cloth I can find (I used to use clean cotton diapers, but those days are gone forever) and some good ol’ elbow grease.

Wouldn’t it be nice if our tools produced cuts that were ready for the finish?

Best regards,
Don

-- The best things in life aren't THINGS.

i don’t make fancy stuff like most here but the sanding I do is by hand. I like the feel of the smooth wood. I sometimes use electric sanders when I want to take off a lot of material however I also like to use a rasp and a couple hand planes to remove material.

I guess I am a real Neanderthal. I have no power sanders. I enjoy sanding by hand but at the same time try to minimize it as much as possible to get the better finish left by planes and scrapers.

I am working on my first end-grain cutting board. This took some serious sanding, but was very satisfying. It is also a good incentive to get the pieces as well aligned as possible when doing the glue-up.

-- "Too much hurry ruins the body. I'll sit easy … fan the spark" - I. Anderson

I always hand sand at the end. Just a habit and that’s the way I was tought in the piano shop.
Bill

-- bill@magraphics.us

When it comes to hand sanding I always remember advice/wisdom from an old timer. “Sand one stroke across the grain-it will take twenty strokes with the grain to erase it”—good advice
tom

-- "certified sawdust maker"

All I have for power sanders are a 1/4 sheet palm sander, a dremel multi-max, and a stationary belt/spindle sander. I do most all sanding by hand. I use the 1/4 sheet sander when I have an edge joint that needs to lay down but after 120grit I go back to hand sanding with 150-180 for the final surface. I do feel the need to caress the project and get that “right feel” for the finish.

-Eric

-- Building quality in a throw away world.

All I own for a power sander is a dremel rotary tool, and a ROS. Otherwise I have probably 10-12 different sanding implements, and things to wrap in sandpaper. I typically use the ROS to level things out if it’s minor, and then finish by hand sanding. I prefer the precise control that I have by hand as opposed to the ROS.

-- Mos - Twin Cities, MN -- Stanley #45 Evangelist - www.youtube.com/MosquitoMods

Most of my work involves sculpting and shaping wood with curves and concave designs…so using any power sanding equipment is very minimal. I use my drum sander for the initial flattening, sizing and sanding of the lumber before I cut the miters for gluing my boxes. After that I do nothing but hand sanding after my initial rough sanding with my random orbit sander. I find the hand sanding to be relaxing and a quiet process.

-- Every step of any project should be considered your masterpiece if you want the finished product to reflect the quality of your work. http://www.FineArtBoxes.com

And for the odd ball answer, I also have a variety of sanders and planes and scrapers. I do use my power sanders, mostly a PC330 (quarter sheet). Once I’m done cutting, scraping etc, I take out my PC330, slap a sheet of 100 grit on it, scribble all over my surfaces with a pencil and sand those out. When finished, I slap on 120 paper and do it all over again and once more with 150 paper (+ 180 with pine). Then I dust it off with a clean paint brush and get real weird. I take a damp cloth and wet all surfaces one at a time. I call this “whisking” because it lifts all the lose fibers left in the wood and after it’s dry, I can pass my hand over the surface and fee the fury fibers. I sand these off by hand using a 180 grit paper. This process will also lift any dents left by clamps of tools, even the ones you didn’t see. You can feel the bumps. I learned this from a master cabinet maker and it works fine for me. He also told me any sanding above 180 grit on a hardwood will close up the pores although I’ll admit that I have seen glass like finishes using the 400+ grits, but I don’t care for that look. I prefer the look of wood.

-- Bernie: It never gets hot or cold in New Hampshire, just seasonal!

Thanks everybody.

I’m learning a lot here. I use to use my electric and pneumatic sanders as much as possible, but lately I find that I have at least 10 boxes of different grades of sheet sand paper that I use to hand sand.

I even went to the extreme of exploring different methods of power sanding but I kept coming up a bit short in the finish I wanted.
Now I power sand as much as I can, but like others have said. hand sanding takes out all those other little defects you either get with using power tools or the ones that escaped your notice when using a power tool.

-- Improvise.... Adapt...... Overcome!

I do quite a bit of curved work and find it absolutely necessary to hand sand after using the oscillating drum.
I don’t like it much!
But, sanding finishes seems to be less onerous.

-- Gene 'The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.' G. K. Chesterton

I can’t say much with authority since I am early into woodworking as a hobby, but I rely mostly on machines. Partly it has to do with my wrists, since I do like some handsanding. On my current project I picked up the sanding block for about 30 seconds, and then put it down and went to my detail sander. My wrist was already starting to complain.

So sometimes it is preference, sometimes it is what you are doing, and sometimes it problems with the human machine that dictates what we do, I guess. I would estimate I do about 1% to 3% by hand, usually final sanding or difficult surfaces…....

-- Jim, Anchorage Alaska