Redwood Dilemma: How To Sand Boards From This Softwood

Published On: April 21, 2018|Categories: Blog|Tags: sanding softwood boards|

Sanding softwood like redwood boards can be tricky. Redwood boards often have wide bands of early redwood. It’s lighter in color and soft. They also get darker bands. These darker bands came from harsher weather that slowed the tree’s growth. They’re more dense. So, sanding redwood boards can be a hassle, if you’re not prepared. Some of the wood will sand down, leaving bands behind at a different level.

When this happens, you’ll have a process on your hands, but you can still safe the redwood boards. First, you’ll need to these raised areas with a thickness planer once or twice. After that you’ll sand the surface.

When you sand, make sure your sander has a dust-collection port that connects with a wet-dry vac. Keeping the dust away will make your sandpaper last longer and reduce swirl marks on the boards.

Start by cleaning the surface of the board with alcohol. Using a medium speed, remember to not actually press down when you sand. But also, set the sander on the board before turning it on. Guide your sander in overlapping patters in line with the grain of the soft wood. Keep the sander moving at a speed of about one inch per second. This process will remove any swirl marks you created when you first attempted to sand the redwood boards.

Next, go over the boards with 180-grit paper. After a few passes, switch to hand sanding for the final process. Hand sand with 220-grit sand paper for a nice, smooth surface, ready to stain.

Are You Ready to Move to the Area?

If you’re interested in moving to a community near Evansville or Jasper, Indiana, check out our listings. Become familiar with the area. Before you start shopping for a home in Indiana, it’s a good idea to explore areas you might like to live in — that way you can get a feel for what properties are available and how much you’ll need to spend. We’ll help you find homes for sale in the most beautiful parts of Indiana.

Let us know if you want us to be on the lookout for Evansville or Dubois County homes with solar arrays, geothermal systems or other green upgrades too!

Thinking of Selling Your Dubois County Home?

On the other hand, if you’d like to sell your Dubois County real estate, we’d love to help with that too! We offer a completely FREE Comparative Market Analysis (CMA). Zillow’s zestimates can be off by as much as 12 percent! Obviously, to make any decisions, you need to know the actual value of your property, right? A 12 percent difference could be a deal breaker when it comes down to it. Yet, if you contact us today, we can get you a detailed report and the estimated value for your home based on today’s market. Plus, we can get that to you usually in less than one day. So, request your FREE home valuation for your Dubois County home today!

Contact Welsh Realty Corp. Today!

Call us at 812-634-6969 or get in touch with us online. We can also contact you by email if that’s easier for you! Just fill out our contact request form, and we’ll get in touch right away!