sanding help

[ahoiberg]

hey all.

i was working on another shaving brush last night out of yew and when sanding it, i just cannot get it to cooperate. The high points coming out of the grooves always end up whiter (more sanded, less sanded? can't tell which) than the rest of the wood... if you can imagine what i'm talking about? And the scratch marks are really bad, from the early grits and hard to wipe clean when sanding longitudinally or using the next finer grit. i even tried slowing the lathe WAY down to 500 RPM, that didn't help and i also tried starting with 80 grit, that didn't help either...

can anyone offer any sanding tips to make this come out more even??

thanks everyone!

 

[MichaelMouse]

If you mean the tops of beads versus their sides, that's end versus face/quarter grain reflectivity, and it'll be there, though perhaps to a lesser degree, even with the finish applied.

Give it a blast with compressed air and perhaps a wet wipe between grits to clear any renegade or embedded pieces of AlOx before proceeding. Best argument I know for sharpening a tool for the final pass is the grits it saves.

 

[Keith T.]

Hi Andrew, two suggestions....spindle turnings should require very little sanding, especially around details such as beads. Make sure tools are sharp, preferrably honed, and work on your technique....maybe a club member who is an accomplished spindle turner could review your technique and make some suggestions. 80 grit is way to coarse for spindle work.

 

[GeorgeH]

The advice re: ensuring that tools are VERY sharp and that spindle work, properly turned, should not require the application of 80 grit paper, cannot be overstated. I'd like to offer these points. Sanding at 500 RPM is not slowing way down; sanding should be done at lower speeds. If you're sanding at higher speeds I doubt you can control the process well at all and you're undoubtedly overheating the work. My lathe won't run slower than 500 RPM but, if it did, I'd slow it down even further.
When you sand, remember that the process should involve moving from one grade of paper to the next in serial fashion and NEVER skip a grit (i.e. don't go from 150 to 200; make sure you get the 180 in the middle). Always follow one grit with the next successive grit until you've reached the intended finish grit (which would probably be 600 or greater) understanding that sanding with a finer grit simply removes the sanding marks of the previous grit and skipping grades will actually make the sanding time longer and more frustrating.

 

[ahoiberg]

copy, thanks guys.

if i could slow down lower than 500 RPM, i would, but no can do on my lathe.

i ended up just taking my time with it and realized that the 100 grit, it wasn't 80, my mistake, was way too much. i ended up putting another finishing cut on the piece and started out with 320 and it made a huge difference. plus, the whiteness i was seeing on the high points of the coves ended up going away after all my finish was applied and polished.

thanks for the tips.