Hi Nick, I'm a big fan of your work, both your cases and other furniture as well. I have a general woodworking question, if anyone else that reads this thread has any information, I would appreciate all input. For both Sangaku and Yuugou, you described a wet sanding method for staining your pieces. The results seem fantastic, it's definitely a technique I am interested in pursuing. You explain the basics of using finer and finer sand paper to sand the stain into the wood while it is still wet, is there any more detail you can give? I'd love a step by step process that you use to get the best results, or some books or websites that you used to discover this process. I am not above trial and error, but I thought I would try to get some guidance first! Also, does this method work with any stain treatment? I plan on using regular old Minwax, as I am monetarily constrained. I'm not totally inexperienced with woodworking, having completed a few pieces, but I am a relative beginner, so any suggestions or references that you or any other forum member could give would be greatly appreciated. I will be using your staining method for a few furniture pieces as well as perhaps some case mods in the near future. Thanks Nick and everyone!
Hi Dave, welcome to the forums. I figured I'd post the answer here just so everyone can see it. I originally got the method from an online Fine Woodworking article but it expired and I don't have an online subscription so I had to make some parts up. I've never tried it with stain as I've always just used spar urethane (oil based because water based is crap crap crap). The official method (i vary it depending on laziness) is as follows: 1. Sand the piece to around 220 grit. Might seem a little unfinished but we'll be sanding later so it doesn't matter. 2. Mix 2 parts urethane to one part terpentine (smells better than paint thinner) for the first coat only. Apply the first coat, sand with 220 or similar wet/dry sand paper and wipe off the finish with a cotton cloth (old t shirts work well). 3. Once the piece is dry, sand again but use 400 grit paper. Reapply the straight Urethane, sand with 400 grit, wipe off again. 4. Once the piece is dry, sand with either 400 or 600 grit and rinse and repeat until you have the desired finish. You really won't see much of a difference past 600 grit but sometimes i've used 1000 just because it was handy. The finish is designed to fill the pours of the wood (great for the Mahagany) with the sanding while its wet part. I'm not sure how this works with straight stain but I suppose you could stain it first and then do the treatment with the urethane being careful to not go too far into the stain itself but I've never tried it so you'll have to experiment. Good luck.
