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Conventional woodworking wisdom tells us
that we should always sand end grain
at least one grit higher than everything else in a project.
So if you're doing a tabletop, for instance,
you sand the top to 220,
you should probably say in the end grain to at least 320.
Now I've got two examples here
to show you exactly why we wanna do this.
This is a raised panel door,
and that's a great example of what I'm talking about,
because this center panel is solid
and this profile that's cut around the perimeter
slices through the end grain.
So you have a transition from face grain
to a little bit of end grain back to face grain.
So right in here on a raised panel door
it's always a problem area.
Same thing up here.
That's because that's exposed end grain
that accepts more, finish, more dye, more stain,
whatever you're going to apply.
Now, there is glaze on this particular door,
just as a visual effect
to kind of make it look a little antiqued.
So this kind of staining isn't really problematic,
it just kind of fits the theme.
But what we see right here,
this is because it wasn't sanded to a slightly higher grit
to repel that extra stain from absorbing.
Now on the same door, on the bottom here,
you can see another example.
You've got the side grain of the door rail,
but then the end grain of the stiles gets much darker.
It just took more stain.
No one ever really sees this,
so you don't worry about it too much.
Now this is a blast from the past.
This is a stool that I made maybe 16, 17 years ago.
It's a David Marks design from the WoodWorks show.
Now the grain on this, we're running this way.
So if you look along this edge you're going to see
what looks like the regular mahogany color.
Watch what happens is we turn and transition into end grain.
Starts to get darker right about here
and then it gets really dark by the time you're there.
Now how much this matters is up to you.
It's wood.
Wood is a natural product,
it's going to have knots,
it's going to have light spots and dark spots,
but some people like to see that even out a little bit,
so that the color tone is the same.
And that's what that sanding does.
But the real question here
is why does this happen in the first place?
Think of wood kind of like a bundle of straws.
You have one side where finish and liquids
can kind of sit in between these fibers,
but they're not going to absorb all that deeply.
But at the end you have these openings
and that allows a lot of liquid to be drawn in.
And that's why the color may change.
We've got a block of a cherry here.
When I spray it with water,
the end grain gets really dark,
but the side here stays nice and light.
And that's just because that end grain
is drinking a lot more of this liquid.
Now, even though this is something
I actually practice in my own woodworking,
and it's certainly something I give advice on all the time,
I still had some questions.
Like how high do we need to sand
for this to be an effective technique?
Does it actually get better
if you keep sanding to a higher grit?
Is there benefit to going to 1,000 grit
instead of just stopping at 320?
I was just curious.
So I designed a very simple test with three species of wood
and we sanded them to various grits.
We actually included a rough cut sample,
so you could see right off the saw what the effect is.
And it's pretty enlightening
and some results are actually surprising.
So let's take a look at the test results
and we'll make some observations.
So let's start with the sapele.
All of these samples were cut from the same board
to try to keep the grain as consistent as possible,
and then processed up through the grits.
I even included a hand planed sample
and a rough cut sample directly off of the saw.
So then we basically processed them,
hit them with a little bit of Walnut oil,
and this is what we have.
So just observing the differences between them.
Clearly, as we can get toward the higher grit
you get more sheen.
That's what you would expect,
you're buffing the surface with those high grits,
a lot less sheen down here.
And certainly a texture difference.
It feels pretty darn rough on the rough cut,
feels rough on the hand planed as well.
That can certainly be a species dependent thing
and how sharp your plane is,
but it is definitely rough.
And then as you progressively go up through the grits,
it gets slicker and slicker.
The other thing I noticed
is it's just not that big of a difference between these.
Especially when you compare it to the edge grain
that we have here, look at that color.
Or if you go to the face of these boards
and look at that color.
It's a big difference between them.
And it doesn't seem to make a huge difference
when you go through all the trouble
of sanding to a 1,000 grit.
Certainly feels better,
but even when you compare the thousand grit to the rough,
well, this one you can kind of see a white haze on there,
but that's part of the light reflection.
When you compare the 1,000 grit to a rough surface,
it's actually just not that big of a difference.
So at least in this particular species,
it's kind of hard to justify sanding
anywhere beyond like 220.
And the other interesting observation
is in the range that most of us are going to be sanding to,
probably like 180 to 220 as a finished prep sanding,
I don't really see much difference at all
between the end grain.
So we can draw some conclusions on that later,
but we'll see if this holds true
for the next set of samples.
So now let's flip these over
and let's look at the stain side.
This was hit with a dark black stain.
And now you can see the differences a little bit better.
Hand planed and rough, about the same.
They definitely reflect light a little bit differently,
but they are pretty much the same color.
Once you get to 120
you start to get a little bit lighter, smoother.
Lightens a little bit more at 220, even more at 400.
And then something weird happens at a 1,000.
I don't know if you guys can see that,
but at a 1,000 grit, it doesn't really get lighter,
it actually looks to me like it got a little bit darker
and that was a weird thing.
I expected it to be lighter.
So I was wondering if this was just an anomaly.
So we did another test.
Let's get these out of the way here.
So we took a single board and cut it right here,
folded it open,
and then treated those two edges
to try to make sure that those end grain selections
were as close to each other as possible.
And we got the same result.
So the 1,000 grit, for whatever reason,
I'm not making any claims about this,
just making observations,
for whatever reason the 1,000 grit
is a little bit darker than the 400 grit
when it was stained.
Well, now for one of my personal favorites, walnut.
Similar situation, we've got our hand planned, rough,
and then all the way up to a 1,000.
And once again, at least on the oiled side,
you should see what I see,
and that's really that there's not a huge difference.
Certainly in the rough and in the hand planed,
we do see kind of a darker surface.
Actually in this one,
the hand planed is not that much darker, but a little bit.
But once you get to the 122, 220, 400, 1,000,
they're all kind of the same, they look the same to me.
And then when we compare that to,
well, this might not be the best example.
Let's see, that's a little more typical.
You still have a pretty strong difference
between the face grain and the end grain,
just the nature of the beast.
And, once again, sheen, texture,
obviously much rougher until you get up to the 1,000 grit.
If I take a little bit of paper towel
and you listen very closely,
you should be able to hear the texture difference.
(paper scratching)
It gets a lot smoother as you go up to a 1,000 grit.
So really not a whole lot of surprise here.
And, once again, in that area that most of us work
there's certainly very little difference between the 120,
the 220, and the 400.
So let's check out the stains.
Once again, a little bit easier to see the gradient here
as we go from darker to lighter.
But when I look at these three top choices to 220, 400,
1,000, barely see any difference between them.
Now, I wanted a light colored species here,
and admittedly, this was not the best choice.
This is poplar.
Unfortunately, the only maple I had were larger boards.
I didn't feel like cutting those down just for this test.
So this is what we have to deal with.
So, of course, we've got the similar thing
in terms of texture and roughness.
It's much smoother at a 1,000,
but hard to really see a whole lot of difference.
You definitely have darker colors here.
And when we take the 400
and put that next to the rough ones,
you could certainly see that color difference.
Just a little bit harder to spot when it's in line
and you're looking at one next to the other.
Now, one thing I did notice, the 1,000 grit,
once again, is weirdly a different color,
but all bets are off with poplar,
because you've got so many different greens
and yellows and oranges.
So I don't want to make any claims about that.
But let's take a look at the stained side.
And now you can see some pretty big differences
here on the poplar.
Definitely a lot more thirsty in the lower grits.
As soon as you get to the 400,
that's actually the brightest color.
And, once again, look at that 1,000 grit.
For whatever reason, it's ugly, it's ugly as sin,
but that's why poplar is best under paint.
But in this case,
you see there's just a lot of gritty dirtiness
that almost looks more like the 120 grit
or the 220 at 1,000.
So we did the test again with another board
to see if this is consistent.
And here we go, this is a 400 grit.
Once again, these pieces were cut and separated, like so.
400 grit, 1,000 grit,
and the 1,000 just looks a little bit dirtier.
I don't even know what that is.
It looks like it might be a saw burn mark,
but we were very careful to sand absolutely consistently.
And I can tell you for sure that that is not a burn mark,
but it clearly absorbed the stain in a different way,
in a very uneven way.
So poplar can be a little bit unpredictable like that.
But in general,
if you just look at the tone of the lighter wood color,
it's actually just a little bit dark in the 1,000 grit.
So you might be wondering why does this happen?
Clearly, to some degree, if we sand to a higher grit,
we seem to lock out color, we lock out liquids,
why is that happening?
Well, it goes back to that bundle of straws.
If you imagine we had a sword
and we just made a nice clean cut on these straws,
they're wide open, they could accept liquid.
So that's your rough cut and your hand planed.
It's very readily going to absorb liquids and stains,
that's why they're darker.
But as you start to sand, sanding crushes fibers.
So we're going to crush these
and sort of mushroom everything over,
fill the pores with sawdust,
and it's going to progressively accept less and less liquid.
As you get finer in the sanding,
the particles of dust are finer
and you sort of fill those pores with those fine particles,
and you kind of close off these holes a little bit,
and that's why it gets a little bit lighter.
But that's just one conclusion
and it's one that we kind of knew going into this,
that if you sand to a higher grit,
it's gonna absorb less liquid, less stain,
so it should be a little bit lighter.
Now there's another conclusion that I drew from this.
And this one was surprising to me,
it's that when you are using an oil finish
or a clear finish,
and you're in that range between the 120 and the 400,
the color differences are just not that great.
They're pretty much negligible.
Look at the poplar, from one 120, 220, to 400.
Same thing in the sapele, 120 to 400.
120 to 400 in the walnut.
Just not that much of a difference.
So it seems to me that the more you sand that end grain,
the more thoroughly you sand it, the better off you are.
So if you sand a tabletop to 180
and you choose 180 for your end grain,
as long as you sand it thoroughly,
that end grain will look a very similar color
as if you sanded it to 400.
You don't necessarily need to go through that extra work.
Again, according to these samples
and this limited sample set.
So for me, what's the take-home message here?
Well, if I'm sending a tabletop and I go to 220,
am I going to sand to 320 or 400 on that end grain?
Not for appearances.
I don't think it's gonna make any difference,
but for texture.
I like when I go to a table and I feel that end grain,
I want that glass smooth feeling.
The only way to get that is the sand to a higher grit.
It's just the way it is.
But for appearances,
it doesn't seem like it's gonna make any difference.
It doesn't even out the color,
doesn't make the color any lighter
when you're in that short range between the 120 and the 400.
So that was just surprising to me.
So here's the thing, this is one set of samples.
You probably have some different experiences.
A lot of people sand in their end grain to crazy high grits,
because that's just what they do and that works for them.
It's totally okay.
I just wanted to present these findings,
'cause I thought it was interesting
and it's a little bit of food for thought.
If you have different experiences, let me know about it.
I'd love to hear it.
Also, I would love to know,
what's the story with this 1,000 grit
taking on a little bit more color
in a couple of these species.
It could just be weirdness with these boards,
but it happened in two different species
and they were right next to each other.
That one's melting my brain a little bit.
So if anyone knows what the heck's going on there,
let me know, I would love to hear it.
So thanks for watching everybody.
I hope this gives you some food for thought.
Oh, and one more thing,
because I know a lot of you are going to ask about this.
What is the effect of water popping?
So water popping is a technique
where we wet down the wood with water
that raises the grain and it gets all rough,
and as soon as the water dries,
you sand it back lightly
with the last grit that you left off with.
And it only does that one time.
So if you're using water-based finishes
or water-based stains and dyes,
you don't get that grain raising when you apply the color.
It's a very useful technique.
A lot of times in staining though,
if you do the water popping and then you sand it back again,
you actually get a little bit more color punch.
It's just a little bit darker.
So I have some white oak samples here.
This one was stained after sanding to 180,
this one was sanded to 180, water popped,
sanded to 180 again, and then stained.
And you can see it is a little bit more dark,
it's a little more intense of a color.
That's pretty consistent across the board,
no matter what grit you go to.
So it's not something
that was worth making more samples for,
because essentially imagine the gradient we had
and shifting it a little bit darker with water popping.
That's all you need to know about that.
All right, so I'm gonna let you go now, bye.