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Sanding Issue

Jerry Bridges

Jerry Bridges

Joined
Aug 31, 2021
Messages
67
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23
Location
China Spring, Texas
I am turning a handle for a bottle opener using a Castelo Boxwood blank. I am getting light rings during sanding. There are no gouge marks. How can these rings be removed?
 
I can upload a photo tomorrow. I starred with 120 grit and progressed to 220. and 320. The handle is smooth but the rings remain. I sanded at 400-500 RPM and then stopped the lathe and sanded lengthwise.
 
Ron Solfest said:
120 to 220 is a pretty big jump unless the wood is real soft. If I start with 120 I usually do a few seconds of 150 or 180 before jumping to 220
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I will go back to 180 tomorrow and then up the grit. The wood is Castelo Boxwood which has an unusual grain pattern. First time turning this wood.
 
If it is a spindle/end grain turning, then rough sand with it spinning, then turn off the lathe and sand length wise by hand to remove the rings. Like others have said, 120 to 220 is a big jump. On my bowls, I start at 100 or 120, then 150, 180, 220, 320, and finish with 400.

robo hippy
 
And sand lengthwise (with the grain) with every grit, with the lathe turned off, before using the next grit.
 
General rule of thumb with sanding is to progress no more than 50% higher each subsequent grit. So, according to this rule, if you start at 120, then go to 180 after, and then higher grits. It’s helpful to think of sanding as scratching the wood. The job of higher grits is to reduce the size of the scratches, until ultimately they are invisible.

And, like other folks say, with spindle turnings it’s very helpful if you sand lengthwise between/after grits.
 
Michael Anderson said:
General rule of thumb with sanding is to progress no more than 50% higher each subsequent grit. So, according to this rule, if you start at 120, then go to 180 after, and then higher grits. It’s helpful to think of sanding as scratching the wood. The job of higher grits is to reduce the size of the scratches, until ultimately they are invisible.

And, like other folks say, with spindle turnings it’s very helpful if you sand lengthwise between/after grits.
Click to expand...
Problem fixed. Marks were burnishing from spindle gouge. Sharpened and made another pass and marks gone. Thanks for all your suggestions. My normal process is to step from 120 (or 180 if no tool marks). But, there were no tool marks. So, I decided to skip a step---never a good thing. Thanks for all the suggestions.
 
Jerry Bridges said:
Problem fixed. Marks were burnishing from spindle gouge.
Click to expand...
I generally think of burnish marks, or ‘bruising’ the wood as associated with the transition point on the inside of bowls (maple is especially prone). Solutions for this include grinding the heal of the gouge, and ‘floating’the bevel (not ‘riding’). I always grind the heals of my bowl gouges severely to leave a short bevel and then rounded heal.

On spindle turning I also grind the heal of spindle gouges some (because of the long concave bevel) but never really consider bruising, or burnishing, spindles. Guess I’ll have that in the back of my mind for spindles now too
 
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