Oversanding Splotchyness

[Patrick LaFree]

Hi all,

Hoping for some advice on another project ive gotten in over my head on :D

Client brought me some old railroad car flooring and asked I make a 4'x7' table out of it. So far its turned out pretty good. Im trying to maintain the beat up "rustic" look while also getting it as smooth as possible and filling all holes. I filled everything with epoxy at the clients request and as a result Ive had to sand it down significantly more than I would have liked to remove the overflow.

Is there a good way to remove the splotchyness in the sanding seen below other than sanding it all down? Ive only taken it down to 100 at this point so hopefully going into the higher grits will help.

Any advice is appreciated,

Thanks!

390355390356390357

[Bill Orbine]

I'm not really seeing the "splotchyness" in your pics. Maybe perhaps you might want to lightly sealcoat with 50-50 shellac and denatured alcohol before staining. You got any scraps?

[Wayne Lomman]

Good work! Before sanding finer, do a bit more work with 100 to blend the appearance of the areas you have worked heavily with the intervening areas. You don't need to make it uniform, but it does need to avoid distinct changes. If you stain as it it is, the heavily sanded areas will be more pronounced. Staining and finishing enhances defects as well as desirable characteristics. Cheers

[glenn bradley]

You may want to file this under "information too late" but, don't sand you epoxy repairs, pare them flat with a paring chisel or bent-neck chisel. You can leave them less perfect if that helps them blend in and you will avoid sanding the surrounding material that you may want to keep rustic.

Air exposure may soften the differences in coloration at this point so patience may help your cause. A weak dye mixed with alcohol could also help with the color match. If you need to abrade the original surfaces to try to lighten them up to the sanded areas a sanding mop

390382

chucked in a hand drill can be helpful without destroying the natural rustic irregularities. Sanding stars could help but can be more aggressive and take a bit of getting used to; sanding mops are pretty fool proof if you keep an eye on your progress.

[Yonak Hawkins]

I know, for a fact, that I don't understand "rustic" but doesn't it mean, "not perfect" ?

[glenn bradley]

I know, for a fact, that I don't understand "rustic" but doesn't it mean, "not perfect" ?

I don't know if there is a real good definition of what "rustic" really means in relation to furniture. When I hear rustic I picture artificially or naturally distressed material turned into furniture. Not to my taste but, it was quite the rage for awhile. A pendulum swing away from IKEA maybe? I still see a lot of it if I pass a window display for Crate and Barrel and those types of shops. Does that ungainly wrought iron and glass stuff count too? I picture that as well when I hear the term applied to furniture.

[Tom Bender]

Great table.

Stop sanding! It's as good as it can get, except for the epoxy. These should be excised and patches inlaid.