MicroMesh Question

[Ken Massingale]

I've happily discovered MicroMesh and am getting much better finishes than before. My question is, is there a point in the progression thru the grits that it is not necessary to stop the lathe and sand along the length of the blanks to remove the spiral scratches left by the previous grit? Fortuneately I have progressed to the point that I'm not leaving tool marks, so the sanding process is quicker, I'm just not one to want to do something that is not necessary.
Thanks,
ken

 

[ryannmphs]

I'm far from an expert on this, but here's my $.02. It depends! Now that's clear as mud. Most of the time I will continue to stop and sand the length of the blank up to and includeing 4000. If I'm getting a real nice finish, I might stop at 3200. So it's usually 6000, 8000, and 12000 that are done in succession. I do however stop the lathe between each and examine the finish and determine if I need to go back and fix a minor imperfection or not.

Ryan

 

[Fred in NC]

Somehow I have to agree with Ryan . . .

Some woods require more end to end sanding than others. I do it mostly at the coarser grits.

 

[Scott]

I have a different theory. Who knows if it's right? We're talking about eliminating visible scratch patterns here, right? If you pay attention to the sanding process up through about 600 grit, you should be beyond visible scratch patterns at that point. It's during these steps that I stop between each grit and sand lengthwise. Once I get into using Micro Mesh, I do not even stop between "grits" (actually, it's "mesh"). Just my way of doing it.

Scott.

 

[Fred in NC]

Not different from mine, Scott!

I said: "I do it mostly at the coarser grits." I just did not explain myself very well.

Thanks for the explanation!!!!

 

[jkirkb94]

I mainly sand back and forth on the coarser grits but find it is unnecessary on the finer grits as a whole. If I miss blemish, I go back to coarse then follow up with each progressive finer grit again. Kirk[8D]

 

[jimr]

In my experience, like others, when you get up to 500 grit or so, the scratches "disappear". I have also found that on darker woods the scratches at any grit are much more obvious. A lesson I learned the hard way- I showed a pic on the finishing page of a pen I made from holly and dyed red and blue. In the blue section there is an obivious scratch around the pen. When I was sanding this the scratch was not visible because holly is so white. after I applied the dye the scratch looked like a knife cut. A mistake I will not repeat. Bad experiences are the best teachers.

 

[dougle40]

I've never had to stop and sand the length of the pen , maybe because I've gotten into the habit of sanding with a continous end to end ,horizontal, movement while the blank is turning , just before I switch grits which eliminates any circular scratch marks .

 

[RussFairfield]

There is no easy answer to this one. Somebody will always be able to see finer scratches than others.

Why not do a simple test with two (2) pens, one dark, and the other a light wood.

Sand the 2 pen barrels on the mandrel. Stop the lathe for sanding in both directions on one of them. keep on going for the other. Apply a finish. Assemble the pen. Look at the two barrels in different light, inside, outside, cloudy day, bright sun, fluorescent, incandescent, etc. Can you see any difference? Either way, you will have answered the question better than anything we can say here.

 

[C_Ludwigsen]

Jim, consider using some DNA (denatured alcohol) to reveal that holly scratch before dying. It wets the blank enough to see things that don't show when dry, it evaporates completely and quickly without residue, and it doesn't raise the grain much like water or dye will.

 

[Guest]

One thing I have noticed with a CA finish in particular.
Ca will seem to "magnify" scratches.
I don't know if it is the convexness of the barrel or what.
I stop with Klingspor's cloth "yellow gold" at 400 grit.
I then start MM with 400 grit(or mesh) I have them numbered 1-9.
at #3 I stop going length wise.
On antler I MM all the way through and then white diamond and buff.
When I do it this way I don't bother lenghth wise sanding with MM.

 

[Ken Massingale]

Thanks for all the responses.
ken