How Sanding Affects Your Stain Color
George VondriskaDescription
Believe it or not, the most important step in the finishing process is sanding. George Vondriska and Matt Newborg show you how different sandpaper grit can affect the final stain color of your woodworking projects.
Today, we're lucky enough to have Matt Newborg in the shop with us. And Matt is a finishing guy but what we're really gonna talk about to get going here is sanding 'cause Matt sanding is important to the finishing process, right? I believe it's the most important part of the whole finishing process. And it's what's gonna create a fine finish on any piece that you're working on. All right. So on your sample board, we've got an oak veneered plywood in three different levels of sanding here, right? Three different grits? Three different grits. They're stained completely the same. Each one of them has the same amount of time with each grit on 'em. All right. So let's guess I'm gonna take a poke at the idea that the darker one is the more coarse grit. Yes. This is the coarser grit, and this is the finer grit. So you've got 120 grit that's as far as you sanded here then you went to 150 on this one, 180 on this one. So what, what's the dynamic here, what's happening that makes that darker than this? It's gonna be the scratch pattern that's left in the top of the wood. So here with the 120 grit we have a real aggressive sandpaper. What it is is the pigment that's unstained is getting lodged into those, into that sanding mark. So as we progress into 108, uh 150 and 180, we have less of a sanding mark left there. So we're not allowing as much pigment to go into that sanding mark. Kind of grabs. So, it's kinda like So it's no grabbing. a way for people to think about it as a sanding pattern as a hole in the wood. Correct. And the 120 leaves a bigger hole than the 180. Yeah, correct. So, the pigment has more spot to sit in on the 120, so that makes that darker. So is it bad for a woodworker to stop at 120 if they wanna stay in that? No, and a lot of people will stop at 120 grit. More of what is happening is we're opening the grain more which leaves more imperfections on the top of it. Got it. So when we go to doing after we do our sealer coat and we want to get rid of all the imperfections that the sealer has left if we would go to a higher grit we left less imperfections. And you can kinda see there's not a lot of difference in the two colors here until we actually get up to the and then, There is quite a jump up here And then so it changes. So at the, once we, once we seal it now we have less imperfections to actually shave off. And a lot of times a higher grit will give us a a nicer look and finish. Okay. So it's all in how the eye perceives each of the different ones. So if the woodworker wants a dark color maybe they want to stop at a lower grit to get that darker stain to the wood Correct but they're going to pay for it on the top coat side. Cause they're going to have to door, do more work on the top coat to get everything to look good. Correct. Well, cool. That's good to know. There's this natural tendency. Everybody just wants to take it off to the finest possible grit but it sounds like the bottom line is sometimes you do and sometimes you don't depending on just what kind of look you're after. On the look you are after Cool. Good information, man. Thank you Thanks a lot.
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Your sanding video is SOOO wrong. I am a third generation in the furniture restoration business. Full time 3 year back log furniture restoration business. Taught by old school furniture makers and finishers. That oak would get a final sand of 80 grit paper before using a quality oil based wiping stain in a quality shop. Your 120 or higher burnishes all the fine pores of the wood closed thus making the blotchyness you see in your sample of the fine sanding. Does sanding effect the color definitely yes! The fine sanding is meant to sand the finish. Sure there are soft woods that need a finer paper but not oak. You don't use " wood conditioners" you sand the wood correctly in the first place.
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I am trying to stain red oak to a nice, rich medium-dark brown with reddish overtones. I started with a diluted amber dye followed by a light sanding to tame any raised grain. The stain is a recipe of 3 different Minwax colors mixed together. I seem to have difficulty getting the stain to really penetrate into red oak. At first I thought it was because I was using a gel stain, but switching to regular made little difference. I also tried a coarser grit before the initial amber dye - 150 and even 120 instead of 220, but it still seems like the stain is sitting on the surface more than it's penetrating, except of course for the more open-pored grain pattern areas. Is there some sort of preconditioner I should be using on red oak?
Is there any benefit to going to 220 when staining? What is a good grit to go to when painting?