My Secret for Smooth Staining
Once you're done sanding, make sure you've gotten rid of ALL the sanding dust before you do anything else. Use a good vacuum and then a tack rag to wipe the surface clean of any contaminants. The next step is the trick here. Wipe the surface thoroughly with a a wet cloth.
To remove those last bits of finish, palm sand with medium sandpaper (150 grit) until you see the bare wood. Then switch to fine sandpaper (200+ grit) until the entire piece is uniform. Wipe down the whole surface with a tack cloth to remove any dust from sanding. Now, you're ready to add stain!
Wipe With Denatured Alcohol
The denatured alcohol will help pick up even the finest dust, and since it evaporates very quickly, it will not discolor the wood in any way.
Weathered wood must be cleaned and bleached prior to staining to kill any mildew spores. No matter the type of wood, we always recommend waiting 24-48 hours after rainfall or cleaning to make sure the structure is dry prior to staining.
After sanding a piece of wood, you'll need to clean it before adding a stain or paint. You can use a variety of tools and techniques to remove sanding dust from your wooden surface.
After sanding, power-wash the deck and allow it to dry for at least 24 hours before staining. Sanding exposes porous wood that's ready to soak up the stain, but this isn't possible if the wood is full of water.
Choose an industrial vacuum that can attach to your vacuum-assist tools such as sanding blocks, bazookas, and more. This will give you the peace of mind that fine dust will be removed directly from the point of source before it even has a chance at escaping into the open air. Filtration matters.
These back marks are called metallic discoloration, or iron stains, caused by elemental iron reacting with phenolic chemicals in the wood, forming black iron tannates. Iron stains require the presence of iron, water, and wood and will not occur if one of these elements is absent.
Can a little homemade cleaning spray and disinfectant really do that much damage? Yes. And this is because of how alcohol interacts with wood and wood finishes. While you might expect it to do nothing or just leave a small stain, rubbing alcohol acts as a solvent when it comes into contact with wood and wood finishes.
By de-glossing the surface first using TSP, it will dull the surface and allow the new paint to stick. Normally the areas are sanded and otherwise prepared before they are washed with TSP. Be sure to rinse with a clean, damp sponge and allow the surface to dry thoroughly.
Mineral spirits can be extremely handy to have around your woodshop. It can be used to clean wood, prep it for staining, and a variety of other reasons to help you complete any job. Just dab a clean cloth and wipe the wood's surface to give it a clean finish.
On most raw woods, start sanding in the direction of the grain using a #120-150 grit paper before staining and work up to #220 grit paper. Soft woods such as pine and alder: start with #120 and finish with no finer than #220 (for water base stains) and 180 grit for oil base stains.
If you sand past 180 grit, the wood dust created by the sandpaper starts getting incredibly small. This wood dust can work its way into the wood pores, and clog them up. This prevents the wood from absorbing stain and finish properly.
A tack cloth is much like a damp cloth—but much better. It picks up dust and grime from wood surfaces but it does so without water. Water is anathema to raw wood. It raises the grain, necessitating re-sanding, which necessitates cleaning once again.
Luckily, your Shop-Vac makes cleaning up camping equipment a breeze. Vacuum pine needles, sand, leaves, cobwebs, and whatever other debris makes its way into your tent with a Shop-Vac. Be sure to clean the crevices of camp bins, too!
Wood dust becomes a potential health problem when wood particles from processes such as sanding and cutting become airborne. Breathing these particles may cause allergic respiratory symptoms, mucosal and non-allergic respiratory symptoms, and cancer.
Sand and clean the surface of the wood. Then, apply wood filler using a putty knife. Once filler is dry, sand the area until the surface is level and smooth. Then apply stain or other finish as desired.
Soft brush and vacuum cleaner
Brush the dust from the surface with a gentle flicking motion (rather than dragging it across the surface at a low angle) into a vacuum cleaner nozzle that is covered with a fine mesh filter (this will prevent loose or detached fragments from being accidentally taken up).
The Golden Rule of Sanding
The golden rule for choosing your sequence is to never skip more than 1 grit. For example, if you start with P80, and need to finish at P240, rather than using every grit from P80 – P220, you can do P80 – P120 – P180 – P240. This sequence cuts out P100, P150 and P220.
We always recommend two coats of stain for any wood project, but you should only apply as much stain as the wood can absorb. Extremely dense hardwoods may only be able to absorb one coat of wood stain. The general rule of thumb is to apply only as much deck stain as the wood can absorb.
Most solid hardwood planks are thick enough to be refinished up to ten times. Refinishing is essential to caring for your solid hardwood and helps it last longer. However, while solid wood can take multiple refinishing over the decades, we can only refinish engineered hardwood once or twice.