blog 6


After routing the table you check to see if you missed anything by looking at the table with different light and feeling for any bumps or lines. This is important because when the finish goes on it makes the board more colorful and so all the mistakes will be very visible if you don’t sand them out. After the 220 final sand the table somehow feels a thousand times soften than the 180 grade. At this point all the heavy lifting and long hours working the flattener and sanding all feels worth it. These final stages make the whole process worth it. After the 220 sand you put the finish on. The finish is a combination of three different oils each making up 1/3 of the mixture. Each oil has its own use. One makes the colors pop, another protects the table with a strong outside layer, and the other adds a shine. You paint the oil onto the table in a relatively thick coat. You paint it going with the grain so it works its way into the wood. After the whole table is covered in the oil you immediately wipe it off with scraps of cotton t-shirts. Even for the little amount of time the oil is on the table the wood quickly absorbs the mixture into the grain and after you wipe it off it has a shinier, glossy, and more colorful appearance. Depending on the different type of wood the mixture of oils does different things. The darker the wood the more the oil will make it pop and be brighter. In this case it was a lighter wood. All of this work was on the top side of the table but on the bottom all you do is sand to 80 and then rub a little oil on the bottom. It doesn’t matter how smooth or shiny the bottom is because no one will see it.





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