Hey everyone!
If you have an inlay where the wood grain of the inlay is purposely perpendicular to the surrounding piece, in which direction should the sanding be done? I am guessing it should be along the grain of the larger piece, but thought I would ask since I’m pretty sure some here have done it.
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If you’re going to end up sanding up to a high grit like 400+ it won’t matter, really. The surface will be buttery smooth. Take it to 600 and it’ll gleam.
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circular motion when sanding will sand both grains evenly. If you sand with the grain for one, and cross-grain for the other, they won’t sand evenly. And as Evensd2 says, once you get to the really fine grit, it doesn’t matter much.
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I would look at a random orbit sander for work like this.
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Yeah it works well here, but I’ve done lots of smaller pieces with plain old sanding blocks and it looks great. Can’t really go wrong if you’re careful and use a nice progression of grits.
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This^^.
Once you get into the finer grits, alternating strokes by 90 degrees between them will let you see when cuts from previous grits have been removed, ready for the next.
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Thank you! I’m not exactly sure what that means, but I think it worked out okay. I went up to 800 grit, and I’m super happy with it!
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The fit of your inlay is impressive.
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Thanks! There are gaps, I haven’t really ever been able to one without them. But it is so nice with the finish.
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That turned out great! The Nacre (mother of pearl) inlay is a nice touch, may I ask what glue you used for it?
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Sure! I used this:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00C32ME6G/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I keep it in my freezer per the reviews 
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As the grit gets finer and finer, it’s harder to see the cutting scratches the grit makes. Sanding with strokes in one direction, and changing to the next finer grit rotate the work 90 degrees so the strokes are perpendicular to the previous grit and you can more easily see when all of the scratches from the previous grit have been removed.
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Wow, I never knew that! As it happens, I did do that on this one, just because the pieces were so small but it is definitely good to know, thanks!
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Nice turn out!!!
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Awesome job!
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Looks fantastic.
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