Preparing a Surface

with Brian Boggs

Forget sanding -- a properly used scraper will create a mirror surface

by David Sorg

Proper sanding is a crucial part of woodworking, whether the goal is to remove marks left by the planer and jointer, eliminate tiny imperfections after handplaning, ...

by Jeff Jewitt

Jeff Jewitt, a furniture finisher and restorer, does detective work to determine whether steel wool or abrasive pads products work best for the various steps of ...

by Philip C. Lowe

Jointer and planer knives go dull after just a few board feet, heating the surface of your wood and pounding it into compressed fibers. In this article, Philip ...

by Jeff Jewitt

When finishing open-grained woods, you can fill the pores with paste wood filler if your goal is to achieve a refined, elegant, glass-smooth look, according to ...

by Lon Schleining

With thoughtful planning and the right tools, sanding doesn’t have to be tedious. Lon Schleining actually enjoys sanding! He approaches it in two stages: shaping ...

by Gary Rogowski

Sometimes you have to take the lumber you can get, even if it has defects; just have faith in your machines. Gary Rogowski explains different milling strategies ...

by Strother Purdy

As Strother Purdy of Fine Woodworking learned, you can’t go right buying cheap sandpaper, but it’s still easy to go wrong with the best sandpaper that’s available. ...

by Peter Tischler

Until Peter Tischler became familiar with the underlying structure and reasons behind beautiful grain and figure, he had difficulties working the surfaces of such ...

by Gary Straub

No matter how much time and care go into the making of a piece, its overall beauty is partly determined by how well it has been sanded. No finish can cover up a ...

by Tim Hanson

Tim Hanson built a router/planer that holds boards without clamping out twists or bends, while showing him where the plane is in relation to the board. It’s made ...

by R. Bruce Hoadley

R. Bruce Hoadley has a useful tip for reading boards quickly; his memory crutch goes like this: pith side, plane with the points; bark side, backwards. However, ...