Good Morning,
I am building a tool cabinet and the front doors are made out of walnut crotch that I resawed and bookmatched. Last night, I put the first coat of BLO on the doors and quickly discovered my Random O S left marks in the walnut crotch. Is it too late to sand them out since I already put the BLO on? Can anyone help because I worked my A** off resawing the walnut crotch and right now I want to throw up!
Jeff
Replies
No worries. BLO is just oil with driers in it. Go ahead and sand 'til your heart's content. When you are happy with the sanding, rub on some more BLO.
When using oil, I like to use some fine sandpaper to apply it, kind of like wet sanding. It imparts a nice, hand-rubbed finish and lets you smooth out any scratches that may show up at this stage.
Mike Hennessy
Pittsburgh, PA
Mike I do that all the time but I apply the oil with the 3M grey pads.. Works great!
Yep, they're good too. I have also used thin sanding sponges to good effect.
Mike HennessyPittsburgh, PA
I am about to apply oil to a box. I had not heard of using a sanding pad to apply. I have an old Scotch 400 grit sanding pad. Would this work to give the hand rubbed effect that has been mentioned?
Sanding in these finishes with 400 or finier grtis does do a good job of keeping the finish smooth, but they get the hand rubbed look because after the application, by rag or with sanding, all the oil that remains on the surface must be wiped dry before it starts to get tacky.
Dunno what exactly is an "old Scotch 400 grit pad". Even if I did, being that it's "old", it would no longer be the same grit as new, so why not just give it a try? Can't really hurt anything since it's a fair bet it's not too coarse -- more likely not coarse enough to cause any harm.
Mike HennessyPittsburgh, PA
I would not rely on sanding with 400 grit sandpaper or using sanding pads if you are dealing with sanding scratches left by you ROS. You have to use a grit aggressive enough to remove those marks. Then move to a grit that removes the marks left by prior grit. Go back a couple of grits below where you left off sanding previously and work back up. Crotch wood can be very hard and scratches are difficult to remove.
Keep sanding and periodically wetting the surface with mineral spirits. The MS will highlight any scratches or areas that need sanding attention as well as previewing how the wood will look when you later apply BLO.
Once upon a time, I played around with gun stocks a bit. Part of that puttering got me in a place to learn from one of those old crotchety types with furrowed brows and leathery hands.
And one of the things he showed me is how to apply, and wet sand, polymerised oils to a gun stock. Not BLO, but close. The idea was you dont want pores, so 400 grit to start, with oil, sand and sand and make a slurry all over the surface. He used a scrap of cardboard as a cheap squeege to help pack it in, theory being pores are filled with debris from the wood you're finishing. When there was an even haze over the whole thing, it set aside to dry a few days, and then repeat if necessary.
This followed by polishing with finer grits, and then just oil, daily, for about a month. But thats a side issue.
So yes, you can sand it, you might even like sanding it with oil on it. You might have good enough karma that a little oops turns into a better end result. Doncha love days like that?
Real trucks dont have sparkplugs
This forum post is now archived. Commenting has been disabled