Bill wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news4.newsguy.com:
Instead, you cope with it.
surface. Then
surface with 400-grit
Repeat
800-grit. When dry,wipe with the
No, not at all. It's completely different stuff:
Always wash your microfiber cloths *by hand*. Put one in the laundry just once, and you'll discover that it picks up lint just as readily as it picks up sawdust.
So do I -- somewhere. I haven't used it since the first time I tried microfiber cloth, as suggested by someone else here so long ago I've forgotten who or when. Probably close to ten years.
Alcohol will raise the grain of the wood somewhat, not as much as water does, but still noticeably. You may not be happy with the results.
A vacuum cleaner does a pretty good job of lifting dust from the pores of the wood. But you still should use a microfiber cloth afterward.
Or plastic. It also works just fine on wood, and it's what I normally use for sanding between coats of varnish.
Also note that grades finer than 320 are not widely available in anything but silicon carbide. I've only rarely seen 600-grit aluminum oxide or garnet, and I've *never* seen it in 800 or higher. Doesn't mean it doesn't exist, though. :-)
That's not an issue when sanding varnish between coats: a quarter-sheet of wet-or-dry paper, *used dry*, will easily take care of 2 or 3 square feet of wood -- as long as the varnish is dry. If the sandpaper loads uniformly with fine dust, that's great; if it loads in spots with little clumps of varnish, you need to let it dry longer. If the varnish is the least bit sticky to the touch, it's not ready to sand.
Yes -- no water. The paper will stay usable long enough, and if you're using wipe-on poly you don't want water anywhere your project until you have at least three or four coats on it. The stuff gives a much thinner coat than brushed poly or sprayed lacquer, and a single application is *not* waterproof.