Finish Sanding

Thursday was a much more reasonable day. In the morning I took care of Catherine’s bag handle order. She ordered 4 pair of handles from On Hand stock. Being On Hand means that the handles have been milled out and are complete except for the finishing. We do this so that our customers may order the finish of their choice. How long it takes to complete and ship a bag handle order depends on how many pair are ordered and which finish is selected. CLICK HERE to view our discussion of available finishes.

In brief, finishes like shellac and lacquer dry very quickly and finishing a dozen or so handles can be done in an hour or two. Oil based finishes, including polyurethane, require at least 8 hours of cure time between coats – more if the weather is hot or humid. Lots more if it is both.

The higher the gloss desired, the more times we have to sand them with ever finer grits of sandpaper before we apply the finish. Sanding a pair of handles 4 times takes twice as much time as sanding them twice. And we have to sand again between each coat of finish. So sanding can consume a lot of time.

These handles are getting a matte Antique Oil finish, se we sanded to 150 grit and will apply two coats of oil, scuff sanded with a very fine sanding sponge between coats. Here I have the first coat on and the handles are hanging on a special drying rack that prevents pressure marks in the finish as it cures. They will hang here until tomorrow morning when I will repeat the process. The second coat will not be cured before the UPS truck come through on Friday and UPS does not pick-up on Saturday so these will go out of here on Monday.

For the full story on how our Bag Handles are made, CLICK HERE

The afternoon session was spent finish sanding Warren’s Nanny Rocker.

CLICK HERE to view all the details of today’s Nanny Rocker activity.

CLICK HERE for details on purchasing a Nanny Rocker of your own.

Thanks for dropping in!

Doug