Building 13 twelve foot tables for a brewery and I just finished sanding and staining my first table. I went very slow with sanding and just let the weight of the sander do the work. Worked my way up through the grits and I still have swirls. How do I keep them from happening?
Pigtail swirls with RS2
- Thread starter Acarper76
- Start date
Dogberryjr
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- Mar 5, 2015
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- 160
Decreasing the suction on the DC worked for me.
AlexThePalex
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- Nov 12, 2008
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- 7,808
Suction at its lowest and wipe your table clean after each grit.
rvieceli
Member
Lower the suction on the extractor. Wipe the surface between grits then if you have a compressor, blow the surface at a low angle to remove grit stuck in the wood pores.
Use a low angle side light to help you see the swirls as you sand. Try sanding with the grain only. If you are moving the sander fast, slow down if slow, speed up.
Consider moving your grits closer together. Try 80-100-120-150-220-320
Ron
Use a low angle side light to help you see the swirls as you sand. Try sanding with the grain only. If you are moving the sander fast, slow down if slow, speed up.
Consider moving your grits closer together. Try 80-100-120-150-220-320
Ron
junk731
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- Sep 10, 2008
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- 923
It takes many hours of sanding to understand what you have to do to eliminate swirls. Take the advice here and put it to use. The question I have is why you are staining an uneven surface with glue squeeze out still present that you show in the picture. This indicates that you didn't do the initial coarse level sanding and inspection properly. This is the most important part of sanding large surfaces.
Hey, people that like the trendy 'Rough look' would pay extra for that finish!
kcufstoidi has a good point - you could hit that with a scraper or something like the RO150.
I did a combo of the two on my last jointed table top and it worked really well.
kcufstoidi has a good point - you could hit that with a scraper or something like the RO150.
I did a combo of the two on my last jointed table top and it worked really well.
Michael Kellough
Member
Was that an orbital sander or a random orbit sander? Looks like the former and you didn’t finish sanding in the rough stage, and were moving the sander around too much with course grit.
Sanding is not like wiping dirt off something with a rag. You need to survey and find the high spots and knock them down to the level of the rest of the surface then go over the entire surface in a deliberate rational pattern.
First draw lines across the entire surface with a soft pencil a couple of inches apart. When you’ve sanded the lines off you can change grits.
Thoroughly clean the entire surface after each grit (and the sander). Then draw the lines on again and sand them off. Step up grit count no more than 50%. 60-80-120-180-240
In this case a scraper would have been useful (if you don’t have a belt sander with sanding frame).
Sanding is not like wiping dirt off something with a rag. You need to survey and find the high spots and knock them down to the level of the rest of the surface then go over the entire surface in a deliberate rational pattern.
First draw lines across the entire surface with a soft pencil a couple of inches apart. When you’ve sanded the lines off you can change grits.
Thoroughly clean the entire surface after each grit (and the sander). Then draw the lines on again and sand them off. Step up grit count no more than 50%. 60-80-120-180-240
In this case a scraper would have been useful (if you don’t have a belt sander with sanding frame).
