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Thread: Keeping your wood clean...

  1. #1
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    Keeping your wood clean...

    Morning everyone
    Just curious what you all do to keep your finished pieces you are working on free from oil, grime, dirt, etc

    My latest project of a small box has really brought it to my attention that oils and grime from my hands are really smudging / dirtying my pieces. I am going to assume this is from sharpening and getting metal bits on my hands.

    Do you guys wear gloves and or wash hands everytime you sharpen, or just keep a separate rag for cleaning your hands?

    What's your process?
    Thanks.

  2. #2
    Quote Originally Posted by Michael J Evans View Post
    Morning everyone
    Just curious what you all do to keep your finished pieces you are working on free from oil, grime, dirt, etc

    My latest project of a small box has really brought it to my attention that oils and grime from my hands are really smudging / dirtying my pieces. I am going to assume this is from sharpening and getting metal bits on my hands.

    Do you guys wear gloves and or wash hands everytime you sharpen, or just keep a separate rag for cleaning your hands?

    What's your process?
    Thanks.
    I tend to use very tight-fittting work gloves when handling raw wood (something about slivers etc.) As an a vocational auto mechanic I do the same, I’m very sensitive to this, as well as skin reaction to some of the exotics, and chemicals etc.

  3. #3
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    Many of the retailers catering to the building trades carry bags of rags. My favorite is the ones made up from white tee shirt material.

    At my sharpening bench for oilstones there is one very used one for cleaning the stones and blades. There is one lesser used for final cleaning of a blade and there is another one mostly used for cleaning my hands. If my fingers do not smudge a clean white rag, they are unlikely to smudge my work.

    Waterstones are a different story. For those it would be necessary to use some kind of hand cleaner or a damp rag. For cleaning blades after waterstones an old towel works. Getting the fine swarf from water stones off the fingers requires more work.

    jtk
    "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
    - Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

  4. #4
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    I store my lumber on a wall rack.

    https://www.google.com/search?q=gara...hrome&ie=UTF-8

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jim Koepke View Post
    Many of the retailers catering to the building trades carry bags of rags. My favorite is the ones made up from white tee shirt material.

    At my sharpening bench for oilstones there is one very used one for cleaning the stones and blades. There is one lesser used for final cleaning of a blade and there is another one mostly used for cleaning my hands. If my fingers do not smudge a clean white rag, they are unlikely to smudge my work.

    Waterstones are a different story. For those it would be necessary to use some kind of hand cleaner or a damp rag. For cleaning blades after waterstones an old towel works. Getting the fine swarf from water stones off the fingers requires more work.

    jtk
    Thanks Jim.
    Sounds like I may need to invest in more rags (aka t shirts and socks lol) I use both oil and diamond stones. For my diamond stones I use windex or water / detergent and obviously oil for oil stones. I have one rag that is my sharpening rag which is very well used and I use to clean both stones.

    Maybe I should get some gojo for cleaning my hands afterwards?

    It was amazing to me how I went from prisitine planed surfaces to a very dingy box. I didn't notice it all at one, likely it was a accumulation of my handling throughout the project.

  6. #6
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    When I started building instruments I learned quickly to was my hands religiously. I started washing hands between each operation. There is nothing worse than tryin to sand dirty fingerprints out of the inside of a guitar. I got to the point that I would reach out to pick up a piece and think "have a washed my hands?" Usually that ended with a trip to the kitchen sink. This has transferred over to my furniture work just not as religiously. I also now have a sink in the shop.
    Andrew Gibson
    Program Manger and Resident Instructor
    Florida School Of Woodwork

  7. #7
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    Once I reach the point of putting a final surface preparation on parts I do make sure my hands are clean before handling. If you are getting oils on parts in quantities that a wipe with some abrasives won't take off I would re-think your work flow.

    I do get pretty grungy when sharpening, lubricating tools (hand or powered) and when moving rough stock around. I rarely go from one of these tasks directly to handling near-finished parts.

    Maybe a reserved spot in the shop for parts to wait that are near-finished so that they don't have to be moved from place to place at odd times? In a small shop it is hard to commit such a space and I have been known to carry parts into the home office to keep them "safe" if there will be a delay before assembly.
    "A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg".


    – Samuel Butler

  8. #8
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    I wash my hands any time I go to the shop to work on wood. Even normal oils from your hands can leave stains on clean wood, particularly wood that is ready to finish.

  9. #9
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    My hands tend to be dry and even to crack in the winter, so I rarely get grime or oil on wood from them. If I have spilled glue on the workbench and gotten my hand in it without noticing I can get gluey fingerprints sometimes, but it happens very rarely, usually when I'm in the middle of a glue-up and trying to hurry too much.

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by Michael J Evans View Post
    Thanks Jim.
    Sounds like I may need to invest in more rags (aka t shirts and socks lol) I use both oil and diamond stones. For my diamond stones I use windex or water / detergent and obviously oil for oil stones. I have one rag that is my sharpening rag which is very well used and I use to clean both stones.

    Maybe I should get some gojo for cleaning my hands afterwards?
    Beware the pumice that gojo etc may include for cleaning purposes. Nobody likes to have volcanic ash as part of their tool prep regimen... Plus it contains its own oils and emoluments.

  11. #11
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    I keep plenty of discarded T-Shirts nearby and I wash my hands often as needed in the sink adjacent to the shop...
    Jerry

  12. #12
    The method I use is mentioned in Nicholson (1812) and other old sources. We use a trying plane to true up the surfaces. Then we do joinery, molding etc.. Then right before glue up, or right before finishing, we go over the surfaces with a smoothing plane. The smoothing plane is used to clean the surfaces of dirt, reference marks, scuffs, and the like. Usually a single pass over the surface with the plane set very fine is sufficient.

    I use both water stones and oil stones, but I don't have a problem with fingers getting dirty. You might examine your technique to see how your fingers are getting dirty.

  13. #13
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    Also under the fingernails. Used to be a fella could buy "orange wood sticks" by the box of 100 at the drug store. Bevel on one end, taper cut on the other, soft enough to blossom when wet, but stiff enough to get the grime out.

    I have a particular knife with just the right angle on the end to scrape the entire underside of my fingernails without causing pain, but I sure do miss orange wood sticks.

  14. #14
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    Overwhelmingly it sounds like I need to quit being lazy and just go wash my hands more. I sharpen where I do most of my work (left side of bench) and then usually go right back to work.

    I have a deep sink the the laundry room leading into the garage so it's only a matter of a 15 steps or so. But when your in the groove it's hard to quit

  15. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by Scott Winners View Post
    Also under the fingernails. Used to be a fella could buy "orange wood sticks" by the box of 100 at the drug store. Bevel on one end, taper cut on the other, soft enough to blossom when wet, but stiff enough to get the grime out.

    I have a particular knife with just the right angle on the end to scrape the entire underside of my fingernails without causing pain, but I sure do miss orange wood sticks.
    You can get 50 for ~$4 > https://www.amazon.com/Orange-Cuticl...df_B07SYZSDVY/

    We used to use them for working on circuit boards when desoldering items.

    jtk
    "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
    - Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

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