In article ,
says...
I would like to fine sand the finish and then polish and buff
the finish. What size grit sand paper should be started and
what componds to finish the job?
thanks


Starting grit for finishing the finish (rubbing out) depends on how good
the surface is to start with. The first grit should be coarse enough to
to remove ALL the flaws as efficiently as possible. In other words it
can be anything from 80 girt to 220 grit.

Everything after the first grit is only to refine *take out the scratch
marks from the previous grit) the surface NOT to take out flaws.

Assuming a finish that only needed some light work with 220 grit paper I
would then follow up with 00, 000, 0000 steel wood then move to an
automotive rubbing compound followed by an automotive polishing
compound. Stopping when I get the gloss I want.

For those that want to jump on the above, NO, steel wool is not a
problem if used on the fully cured final coat of a finish. It is a
problem for indeterminate coats but not the cured finish coat.

Note, rubbing out is not done on oil finishes and I don't usually have
to use anything but the automotive products on a properly applied
shellac or nitrocellulose lacquer finish.

Further note, rubbing out the finish is a process of removing the flaws
from the finish then removing the scratches from that task with finer
and finer grits of abrasives until the desired look is obtained. Any
regime using finer and finer grits of any kind of abrasive will do the
job. I use steel wool because I find sandpaper loads up too fast and
steel wool is more economical.

Good luck

--
MikeG
Heirloom Woods
www.heirloom-woods.net