Wood Finishing for Beginners

Why Finish Wood?

Fresh, bare wood looks great, so why would anyone want to finish it? There are several reasons, but the main one is protection from stains, water and abrasion. This is true even for interior wood that’s finished. Bare wood is porous, and this means it picks up dirt and moisture easily. Even touching bare wood with dirty fingers can leave behind marks that can’t be wiped off. For rough, outdoor applications, wood can certainly be left bare. Interior wood, however, is rarely left unfinished.

Another reason for finishing wood is to enhance its appearance. Finishing benefits some woods more than others, but in all cases proper finishing results in greater beauty and more attractive grain patterns. Texture and tactile qualities are yet another reason wood gets finished. A smooth, sealed wood surface is more pleasant to touch and it’s certainly better for wiping down and keeping clean than bare wood. Also, different finishes result in somewhat different textures. A high-build varnish oil finish, for instance, has a different feeling under the hand than, say, urethane.

Begin with a piece of fine sandpaper. A piece of half-used 220-grit works well, because it’s lost some of its abrasiveness, or use a fresh piece of 320-grit. Wrap the paper around a a sanding block.

I use a piece of rigid foam insulation as a sanding block. For finish sanding, never use wood as a sanding block because it doesn’t have enough squishiness. You want something with a little bit of resilience, but not too much. Hand sanding now knocks off those dust bumps, and it doesn’t take much time or effort. Just draw the foam and sandpaper back and forth across gently, in the same direction as the wood grain.

At this stage, you're not trying to remove significant amounts of polyurethane; you’re just knocking off those little high spots. A little bit of movement of this sanding block is going to yield a much smoother finish. Use your fingertips to know when you’ve removed the high spots; in this situation they are much more sensitive than your eyes. You'll feel the difference immediately. The surface is going to be smooth, but it's not going to have an even sheen. Where a little more abrasion happens, the sheen will be dull; where less abrasion happens it's going to be shinier.

Next, you’ll refine the surface further, using non-woven abrasive pads. I use those rubbing pads with a random orbit sander. Remove the abrasive disk from the sander. Place the pad on the work surface, the sander on the pad, then switch ON. The sander causes the rubbing pad to vibrate, polishing the surface as it does.

If you want a shine-free finish or something with just a little bit of gloss to it, use only a fine abrasive pad. It'll smoothen the surface and add a bit of sheen plus a silky-smooth surface. If you want a shinier surface, follow this up with a second pass using a superfine pad and the random orbit sander. The more you buff, the shinier things get.

Staining can happen in several ways and with different products, but the idea is always to enhance appearance by adding colour. Staining involves one of two types of products:

• Traditional liquid and gel wipe-on-and-wipe-off stains (my favourite for many situations).

• All-in-one, wipe-on stain-and-seal products (good but with some drawbacks).