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Old cabinet guy at the lumber yard in Dayton told me to stop sanding past 180 on face frames, and I think he was onto something
I was picking up a load of hard maple at a yard over in Dayton a couple weeks back and got to chatting with a retired cabinetmaker who was there buying a few boards for a granddaughter's dollhouse. Somehow we got on the subject of finish prep and I mentioned I usually take face frames up to 220 or 320 before stain. He kind of laughed and said 'you're just burnishing the wood and closing the pores, son.' I'd never heard it put that way. He said back when he ran a two man shop in the 80s, they never went past 180 on anything getting stain because the wood wouldn't take the dye even, and he swore the finish held up better too. I tried it on a kitchen I'm wrapping up now, just 150 then 180 on the frames, and honestly the stain went on more even than usual. The boards still felt smooth enough to me. Been doing this 14 years and nobody ever told me that, so either he's right or I just wasted a Saturday. Any of you finish guys heard this before, or is it just an old timer's thing?
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reese865d ago
Species matters here as much as grit. Soft woods like pine and poplar burnish and close up fast, so stopping at 180 makes sense. But hard maple is dense and the pores are already tight, so that old guy's advice may not carry over the same way from whatever he built with in the 80s. What stain were you using, oil or water based? Water based dyes behave totally different on sanded vs burnished wood.
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