Some folks will tell you that the secret is to learn to use a skew chisel so skillfully that you get a very smooth surface and you don't have to sand at all.
A harder form of maple will be less prone to absorbing the neighbouring colored dust.
A harder form of colored wood might also help ... I am thinking of an Australian burl like brown or red mallee or concinna burl. Those eucalyptus woods are harder than bubinga.
The less sanding you do the better the result, but I know that is a hard goal to set.
If you can blow a stream of compressed air on your blank when you are turning and sanding that helps a lot.
Thanks for the response. Unfortunately, choice of woods wasn't a real choice. A coworker gave me the bubinga and maple when he found out I was turning pens. As a thank you, I made him a pen out of the woods he gave me.
The blank was pretty smooth before sanding. I actually think I went backwards when I started with the 600. Still trying to get my "process" down. My sanding at this point is blo, 600/750/1000/1500 papers/micro mesh through the grits.
Compressed air make sense.
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