How To Dumb rookie question

J

Jb4249

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Mar 17, 2017
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I am finishing a handle, curly maple on a knife blade. This is about my 3rd or 4th handle that i am making. AS I am working through my sand paper grits the wood begins to turn gray at about 600 grit. This is the 2nd time this happened to me, and it looked pretty good on the first one but i'd like to retain the color of the wood. i am guessing that the finer dust gets into the wood grain. How can I prevent this? Can I clean it out?
Thanks, Ted
 
I have seen similar comments in other forums. Taboo to cross link to those discussions.
One thing that may be happening is the steel dust is reacting with the tannins in the wood. The result is a dying of the wood. Try back tracking to a coarser grit and not abrading the steel to remove the darkening then go forward with the finer grits still avoiding abrading the steel. Another option is to get really good with a scraper and scrape the finish to smoothness.

An after thought is do not use any water with the super fine sand paper. 600 grit sounds like wet or dry paper.

There may be a chemical to bleach the wood back to the original color but this could easily go too far the other way. Perhaps the vinegar listed here. Test on scrap first
 
I try to do all my wood sanding with sandpaper designed specifically for wood and that seems to help a bit also. I also do not wet sand. I just dab some water on the wood surface and let it dry to raise the grain, then I sand off the raised grain while it's dry. Use clean sandpaper and try not to cross the tang too much where the paper will pick up the metal dust. There's probably different ways of doing it, but this has helped for me.
 
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I'm curious what kind of sandpaper and wood you are using. Are you using a powered sander of by hand that could be heating the wood? Does the wood have an oil that could be reacting with the sandpaper? The above posters had good answers, you probably need to go back to a coarser paper that did not color the wood, sand it down, and I wonder if a different kind sandpaper might be better for this wood in your finer grits. Let us know what you end up with.
 
Is the wood stabilized? With stabilized wood you can get it wet and rinse the steel dust off. Have you tried wiping it with a tack cloth to see if the steel dust will come off? it sounds to me like it is steel dust getting into your wood pores. What are your pins made out of?

Personally I start wet sanding at 600 grit with my stabilized wood. The sand paper seems to cut better and doesn't foul up as quickly.
 
I've read something about applying glue to the wood surface to fill the pores and then sanding it off once it is dry, I have not tried this though. I imagine you'd have to do it repeatedly.
 
If you wet sand and the sandpaper is picking up dust from going over the tang or steel pins, then it will turn the maple gray as the metal dust gets trapped in the wood pores and oxidizes quickly.
 
A possible solution to your problem is to resand the wood at a courser grit until the color is right and then put on a latex glove and rub the wood all over with super glue. This will fill the pores. Let dry for at least six hours and then hand sand to a finer grit. Wipe off the dust and buff lightly with a loose buff and very fine white compound or "scratchless" pink compound. this has worked for me. Larry

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OP, that is a great question and i appreciate the idea that the dust gets into the wood and may effect the outcome. i'm no expert on various woods. i can only speak on the few ironwood scale sets i have completed. Interestingly i have wet sanded this knife thru all grits after 220 across the tang ( that was cerekoted), up to 2000 grit . the 600 was black. i continuously rinsed out my sand paper in a 5 gal. bucket and frequently wiped off my handle. twice i tried something new which i think was Larry L.'s idea ( i could be wrong) , but i rubbed this one down w/ carnuba wax. i let it sit over night the 1st time and only about a half hour the 2nd time.
when done i polished w/ 3m papers to 6000. oh yeah, all by hand , i have no belt sander.
Anyway, I kept the paper klean and wiped the scales alot and noticed no discoloration.
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While stabilizing isn't always necessary my favorite part about using stabilized wood is that this issue is greatly reduced. I thin some boiled linseed oil out quite thin with mineral spirits and use it to wet sand.
 
Also spraying your buffing wheels with a generous amount of wd40 helps keep crap out of the pores as well especially with white micarta or lighter woods with a darker bolster, for example.
 
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