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I've just tried wet sanding jarrah & silver ash, with promising results. I dry sanded to 500 grit, then used bio thinners and 600 grit W&D. It seems to give a finer surface ready for an oiled finish than dry sanding with the same grit. Does anyone else do this? If so, what grit and lubricant do you use, and are there some timbers it doesn't work well on?
I find that wet sanding to 1500 grit brings up a pretty nice sheen.
I usually start with with:
600 >800 >1200 >1500>medium cut auto cream>Auto polish
Anything higher than 1500 is pretty much a wank I reckon but you can get up to 2500 I think at supercheap auto's.
I am working with high gloss lacquers but the principles are the same I guess.
I use water as a lubricant with a little detergent to give it a bit more slip.
For hardwoods, I also wet sand with up to 400 W&D on bare timber (eg Jarrah or Redgum). After a base layer of finish has been applied, I'll go to perhaps 2,000, sometimes 2,500 with soap, if it's a jewellery box, say.
As many have said, for normal finishes, up to around 320 ~ 400 on bare timber is quite enough. I only use dry sanding on softer woods; however, using water with, say, 240 W&D can be helpful in raising the grain and then cutting it back - but you have to always sand with the grain.
and less dust ...
For slab tables I'll use either a Tung (occasionally Danish) or Organoil. With Organoil I follow the directions explicitly: too much = matt finish in a few weeks otherwise. :o
When using Tung/Danish I'll dry sand to 240/320 then flood-coat it with oil, wait about 30 mins then wipe it down. Give it a week to go off, then another coat of oil and wet-sand that from 400 through to about 1200. No sanding sealers for this li'l black duck; the above both seals and gives a mirror finish. Subsequent coats are applied more normally, with a very light 1200+grit sandimg between coats..
Too much effort for more detailed items, a plain slab is bad enough... but it does give me truly glorious finish on the jobs where I do use it!