AND, you sand between coats.
I havent mastered the scraper, but scraping would help.
What you feel are tiny fibers raised by the sanding and varnishing. Once
there's a coat or two of varnish, they get sheared off and covered. Getting
a glasslike finish takes time and effort! Waterbased poly is great for
drying, just a few hours and you can sand, but oilbased has a nice color and
builds thickness faster. The oilbased has to dry at least overnight. I've
used a lot of waterbased, just out of laziness. It's easy to clean up!

Oilbased can be sanded with fine steel wool to produce a smooth surface but
waterbased will rust the minute steel wool bits left behind, they say on the
can. The things I've been happiest with were done with oilbased poly and
steel wool. I think the steel wool shears the fibers like a scraper.

Wilson
"Mike S." wrote in message
m...
I've pretty well weened myself off of pine except for some trinket stuff
and
have mainly been using red oak. After running it through the planer and
getting it sized. I start with 100, 120, 150 & 220 grit using the PC RAS.
The wood feels pretty smooth but after the finishing is done I can run my
hand across the wood and feel the texture or the grain of the wood. I'm
wanting to build the A&C Library desk that David Marks built and a rough
surface on a desktop would not work. Is there something else I need to do
or
should I use white oak?
Thanks, Mike
--
Mike S.

http://members.tripod.com/n0yii/woodworking.htm