I have made plenty of mistakes while “learning” the art of sanding, including gouges in the wood and the round “brrr” marks (haha – my technical term) that are highlighted even MORE when you stain them. I’ve even had to sand it all back again because it was so noticeable. So practice, practice, practice is the key!

The Medium Duty Sander:

1. Orbital sander – I’ve used both orbital and mouse/detail sanders. Orbital goes round and round, the mouse tends to go back and forth. Out of the two I prefer to use the orbital, but the mouse does get into corners a little better.

I use the orbital for medium jobs that I need to rid of lightly painted or varnished surfaces or just to smooth a rough piece of timber or trim. I’m currently using an Ozito orbital sander for my medium jobs similar to this one.

I often use this after I’ve used the heavy duty belt sander, for a more controlled finish, then applying finer gauges or grits of the round disc sandpaper grips to get a smoother finish when I’m sanding to bare wood.

NOTE: There’s an important fact you need to consider when using the orbital sander. Since the sanding grit moves in a circular motion, it is cutting across the grain of the wood and this will often lead to round sander marks or grooves in your surface. You will need to finish with a finishing sander or mouse sander in order to move along the grain. Sometimes these round marks will show pretty badly in your finished work, especially if you plan to stain the surface. The stain sits in the grooves, making them more noticeable.

The Light Duty Options:

Sandi Hands sanding gloves – great for getting into corners and for sanding spindles. Great control over what you’re sanding. You can change the velcrose hand-shaped grit for different surfaces and increasing smoothness. Saves hands and nails, etc. I don’t lose the piece of sandpaper as it’s attached to my hand – ie. doesn’t slip out from my hand like sandpaper does sometimes.

Sandi Hands sanding gloves come in varying degrees of grit gauge. You can order these from our website here, or if you are in the UK or Europe, visit SandiHands website for your nearest stockist.

I use Sandi Hands grits such as 240 & 120 for getting into hard to get places and a I use a light grit like 240-320 for distressing painted furniture or signs. I use the 400 or higher grits for super smooth finishes on all my wood stained finishes.

I know that many furniture paints on the market claim to be “no prep” and to a certain extent, they can be. However, with so many variable surfaces that you can find on any given piece of furniture over years of wearing and dirt and grime, a clean, sanded surface is going to hold your paint on SO much longer than if you don’t give at least a little prep. A little prep is far better than having customers return with scratched and chipped pieces that you have put so much work into. Or if it’s your own piece, having to re-paint it after all that hard work. To show you how super quick and easy it is to give your surface a rough sanding, I filmed this on my iphone one day when I went to paint a wardrobe.

In less than 2 minutes – I’m done! (‘scuse the poor video quality, folks, I was unable to download this one as HD from my phone years ago).

Sandpaper – I still pick up a little piece of sandpaper every now and then for odd bits of light sanding or distressing painted pieces. They come in a number of grits from course to very fine. But if you don’t like the way they fling out of your hands, wreck your nails, end up in a scrunched up mess, then I’d opt for SandiHands.