sandingstainingwooden-furniture
I've gathered that the step immediately before staining a table is to sand it. However, I wonder how to tell when the table is smooth enough? Can I skip the sanding step?
In my case I bought an unfinished pine table (new, not antique) which, to my touch, is rather smooth. Running my finger across the tabletop, I can only feel the largest grains. I even see some sawdust around the drawers, which makes me think it was already sanded.
The short ends you pictured are the cross grains of the board. What I see is that you have used a too coarse sandpaper on these edges. This should be easy to fix. You need to step down the grit of the sandpaper. Any final sanding should be done with 220 or 320 paper. On these end details, use fine paper, break its (paper's) back so it is flexible, and take your time working it on these ends by hand. It may take a few minutes, but it will smooth out nicely.
If you want to do a good job, I'd sand until you begin to remove some of the stain from the wood (in effect, sanding the wood)
Then I'd prime the wood with Zinnser Bin wood primer than paint over that.
They have a fast drying version of this; I tried it once; don't use it. you need to move very very quickly. Use the normal drying one and it'll give you more time to work with it.
Wood "sweats" and the stain will eventually come through the paint. Removing the varnish and priming it with a wood primer (not a wall primer) will seal the wood and keep the new final paint from flaking / showing stain from the wood.
For some of the few window casing's I kept in this house and haven't removed, it's held up awesomely for 3 years now. I also had to use a heat gun to get 3 layers of paint off, but thats a different issue. I wouldn't use a heat gun if its varnished. Sand it.
I did this same process to any wood doors that weren't painted and all the wood trim we installed after gutting the rooms.
Best Answer
A nice trick (learned as a wood turner) is to spritz some mineral spirits on the wood. I usually use rubbing alcohol, as I keep that around. (Not mineral oil, as that will not evaporate.) Anything that will "wet" the wood, but evaporate quickly without leaving a residue, and without raising the grain as water would do. Water is bad of course in this context, since it causes the cells in the wood to expand, raising the grain. The idea is to see what the wood looks like when wet. It will often bring out scratches that remain from sanding, or other tool marks.