With the current situation, I’m staying at home and that means I needed to keep myself busy so I’ve been working on my crafting. That means I had to quickly learn tips to better sanding so I could re-do some pieces.

Honestly, I never knew that there was a right way to sand. Just smooth it out right? Well Rachel showed me just how wrong I was!

I thought I would share some of the sanding tips I’ve learned from Rachel at Renewed by Rachel! If you are local to me in the Raleigh area…Check out Rachel’s amazing transformations. I am only a tiny bit biased because she is one of my three sisters but her work is so amazing I have something of hers in nearly every room of my house.

Here are 8 tips to better sanding.

Move the sander slowly in the direction of the grain.

If you sand across the grain you are tearing up the wood fibers so scratches will show up more. Sanding WITH the grain will hide those scratches and make your result much better.

Resist the temptation to move the sander in a circular motion or across the grain.

This may speed up the process when stripping an old finish, but it will leave circular marks on the wood and that is going to be difficult to fix. Resist the temptation- in the end it will be worth it.

Use steady, consistent pressure.

If you press too hard in one area and go light in another, the final result will be uneven.

Start with a lower-number coarser grit sandpaper and gradually move up to higher-number, finer grit sandpaper.

Sand with at least 3 grit levels of sandpaper. When stripping off an old finish, Rachel generally starts with 60-80 grit for removing old polyurethane and stain. Once the old finish is gone and she can see the bare wood, Rachel moves up to a 100-120 grit, then 180-220 grit, and finishes with a sandpaper in the 300-grit range for a silky smooth finish.

Change your sandpaper if it gets gummed up with old finish or gets worn or tattered on the edges.

If you don’t you will be wasting your time really- you may feel that you are going through a lot of sandpaper but it’s better than damaging the wood or spending three times longer than necessary.

Sanding blocks are very useful for curved edges and details such as turned legs and routered table top edges.

These can get into the tiny grooves and rounded corners that a sander can’t. Have somewhere even smaller? Try a nail file! Check out sanding blocks here.

Before sanding, clean the surface of finished wood with a good cleaner to remove grease, residue and stains.

Even new, bare wood should be sanded before staining or painting. The surface may feel smooth, but there will often be dings and scratches that may need to be smoothed out. Check out wood cleaners here.