karencampbell•2mo agoProlific Poster

Just realized I've been sanding with the grain wrong for maybe a decade. A client pointed out a scratch pattern on a walnut table I refinished.

4 comments

4 Comments

Yeah, the part about "honest character" really hits home. I read an article by a furniture restorer who said the old hand plane marks and sanding patterns are like a signature. They show the work was done by a person, not a machine. @the_anthony is onto something about clients looking that close. If the finish feels smooth and looks good from a normal distance, that's what matters most. Getting hung up on perfect, invisible scratches under a raking light is a modern problem. That client was hunting for something to complain about.

jessej231mo ago

Honest character" is right. I once spent three days on a walnut dining table, sanded up to 400 grit, perfect smooth finish. Then the client asked if I could plane it by hand to add "character marks." They paid extra for the flaws I spent a week trying to avoid. It's funny how what we think of as mistakes end up being what people want. I've learned to stop fighting the natural look and just let the wood and my tools do their thing. Saved me a lot of sandpaper and sanity.

king.eric2mo ago

Wow, I thought the opposite for years.

the_anthony2mo ago

Consider how many perfect finishes were done "wrong" before anyone had a magnifying glass. Maybe @king.eric had it right and the scratch pattern just adds honest character. A client looking that close is probably looking for problems anyway.