There is. Yes, there’s a secret to making sanding go quickly, easily and painlessly, and if you keep reading, I’ll tell you what it is.

You’re welcome.

Overview

To be perfectly honest, most folks sand way too much. The goal is to sand very little, yet still get great results. That’s entirely possible, but in order to do that, you need to know a few things; which paper and grits to use, when to switch grits or papers, how to use sandpaper efficiently, and most importantly, the object of each sanding step. After all, if you don’t know what each sanding step is meant to accomplish, how can you know when to stop sanding?

The Steps

The first round of sanding has two goals: flatten the wood and remove tool marks. That’s all you need to do, and you want to do it as quickly as possible. Therefore, use the coarsest paper that’s practical: usually, 80-grit. Using a harsh grit does this job quickly. If 80 doesn’t do it fast enough, go down a grit to 60, then back to 80, but remember, the goal is to get it flat and remove tool marks quickly.

Once the wood is flat and free of tool marks, you move on to the second, third and all other sanding steps. They all share just one goal: to replace the sanding scratches from the previous grit with finer scratches. You do that by sanding with a grit close to the last one. For instance, go from 60 to 80, from 80 to 120, from 120 to 180, and from 180 to 220.

The Paper

When sanding raw wood, I prefer aluminum oxide grit. It’s sharp, cuts fast and because it is usually friable, it fractures as you use it so that it continues to present a sharp cutting surface to the wood. However, that does not mean you should overuse it. Sanding with dull aluminum oxide paper is false economy; it makes you work harder, go slower and accomplish less. Switch to a fresh sheet frequently and never mind if you haven’t worn away every single bit of grit on the surface.

Now for the tough part: how to tell when it is time to stop sanding and move on to the next grit. I’ve explained what the objective of each step is, but to know when to stop, you need the best sanding techniques, both by hand and with a machine. That’s because the technique itself will tell you when to stop sanding. This may sound hard to believe, but it is true. Bear with me and I’ll show you what I mean.

By Hand

Wrap the sandpaper around a comfortable, hand-sized block lined with cork or rubber on the sanding face. Sand diagonally to the grain. Yes, I said diagonally, NOT with the grain. Diagonal sanding cuts the wood quickly and prevents “washboarding,” which often happens, especially on soft woods, when sanding with the grain. Washboarding occurs when the softer early wood bands erode more quickly than the harder latewood lines.

Now for the clever part. Switch grits, and sand diagonally in the OPPOSITE direction. Conveniently, your new scratches will be at right angles to the previous sanding scratches. As soon as all the scratches from the previous sanding are gone, you are done with that grit. That’s easy to see, since they go in the opposite direction of how you are now sanding. Clever, eh? Now move to the next grit and, once again, change diagonals.

Random Orbit Sander

There’s a trick for random orbit sanders as well. You’ve heard “slow and steady wins the race?” With a random orbit sander, the seemingly contradictory trick is to slow down in order to speed up.

There are two rules: don’t press down on the sander too hard, and don’t move it faster than one inch per second. Pressing down will slow the orbital movement, and that means it’s less efficient and won’t sand as fast. Moving the sander too quickly will create “pigtails,” but worse, it will make it almost impossible to know when to stop sanding. You may find yourself scrubbing forever.

However, if you move the sander only one inch per second, you only need to go over each area ONCE. At that speed, one pass will make the sander dwell about five seconds on each spot. Assuming you didn’t skip a grit, that’s just long enough to remove the previous sanding scratches. Hence, move the sander slower, and you’ll get done sanding faster. You’ll also know exactly when to move to the next paper.

Before you insist that you normally move the sander that speed, please take the speed test. See the scale on the left? Start at the top and move your finger to the bottom, but take a full 9.5 seconds to do it. Now be honest; is that really how slowly you usually move your sander?

I thought not.

An Extra-Special Step

One of my favorite sanding tricks is to follow my final grit, often 180, with the same grit, but in garnet paper. This time, sand by hand, going with the grain. The slightly dull garnet paper leaves a surface that takes stain more evenly, and it even helps burnish end grain, limiting its stain absorption somewhat.

Why does this work? Although aluminum oxide paper is usually friable, garnet paper is not. As you use it, the grit quickly rounds over, leaving a softer, U-shaped scratch rather than the harsher, V-shaped scratches typical of aluminum oxide. By using the same grit size, you quickly and easily align the scratches with the wood grain while softening them up at the same time.

Now that you know the timesaving sanding tricks the pros use, go on out there and sand, quickly and easily.

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Since my goal was merely to give the sense of a tree, I used only part of the tree form: the canopy is blatantly manipulated and cut off in a straight line. This design choice not only gave the spice rack a clean line across the top, it also gave a metaphorical nod to the harvesting and manicuring of trees. For the wood, I used mahogany salvaged from a door maker.

To get started building your spice rack, establish your template and create a cut list for your own design, or use the ones I came up with if you want to follow my lead. Next, mill your wood. (Remember to check that all your tools are set up square. “Squares” might be boring, but squares are a woodworker’s close friend.)

My side pieces are book-matched even though the grain is straight and only has slight variations. Per the usual milling rule for a smaller project like this, I left all of my pieces one to two inches longer than the final dimensions to make sure I had plenty of material. After milling all the wood, I lined up the two side pieces and traced my pattern directly onto the top piece in line with one of the long edges. Next, I crosscut both side pieces to final length at the same time.

Using a dado stack, I set up to cut a 5/8″-wide dado to house my shelves. I laid the two side pieces against my miter gauge fence and together with the inside faces down, then set up a stop to ensure my pieces would stay aligned for cutting each of the grooves. You can see my setup in the photo above. Then I used double-stick tape to adhere the inside faces of the side pieces together for cutting and shaping. (You could also use masking tape or blue tape and tape them together.)

Since I had already drawn my shape on the outside of the side pieces, I went straight to the band saw to cut the organic shapes of the outline. While the pieces are still aligned and taped, drill the holes for your steel rods. I drilled through one side and only halfway into the other so that I could easily slide the bars in through one side after glue-up.

For creating the interior shapes of the branches, I drilled holes in the side pieces so I could use the scroll saw to cut those shapes according to my template. (If hadn’t had a scroll saw, careful cutting with the jigsaw or a coping saw would’ve worked, too.) I took the side pieces apart before using the scroll saw. The thickness of the two stacked together would be too much for that tool.

Next you will rip your shelves to width. The dimension provided for the shelf depth is a little bit deeper than it needs to be, so you can get the right angle on the shelf fronts to match the sides. At this point, assemble the shelves and side pieces. Then, using a pencil, mark the angle you need to cut in order to match it up. On the top shelf of my tree, I cut out two relief spots to ensure that the negative space of the branches wouldn’t get lost with the intersection of the shelf. The angle of the branches made this tricky. Make sure to mark the top and bottom intersection of the shelf and branches because it will be angled. Cut out the smaller shape on the band saw and use your hand tools to shape them flush.

Go ahead and rip and crosscut the wall mounting cleat, and drill two countersunk holes 1-1/2″ in from the ends for mounting the rack. I countersunk these holes 1/4″ deep so I could plug the screw heads.

Now the fun really begins! Using a variety of hand tools (rasps, files, chisels, spokeshave, sandpaper with thin sanding blocks, etc.), I shaped the tree branches, got rid of the saw marks, and chamfered all the edges to varying degrees to accentuate the tree shape on the outside of the side faces. You can form the tree as much or as little as you like. Maybe you want to take the edges to a full roundover or carve it to be closer to a true tree. It’s up to you. Although, with hand-shaping, it is very important to be mindful of short grain, weak spots and grain direction in general. Use smart clamping to support your piece, too. Now sand the front and back faces of the sides, top and bottom of your shelves, and the mounting cleat, up to 220-grit either using a sanding block or by cupping your sandpaper. Don’t sand the front edges of the rack until you have glued it up.

My shelves fit into the dadoes almost perfectly, with a nice friction fit. Therefore, when I sanded the shelf faces before glue-up, I was careful not to hit the part that would go into the dado. I did not sand the front edges of the shelves before gluing: I left them a little big to make sure the edges of the shelves matched the organic shape of the sides.

At this point, it is time to glue things together! Use just enough glue in the dadoes so as to not have squeeze-out on the shelves. I used three bar clamps (one for each shelf). They clamp up nice and square, and they aren’t hefty to haul around the shop.

After ample drying time (overnight), shape and sand the front of the shelves to match your side pieces. Everything should be sanded to 220-grit now, and you are ready to finish!

For the clear coat (I rarely stain wood), I used Minwax® Aerosol Lacquer in semigloss. I needed something quick drying, so this was the right choice. I do hate using aerosol cans, but sometimes convenience wins over ecological sense. I did three spray-on coats. Start in the hard-to-reach spots in between the branches. Make sure you flip the rack over to get all the different angles, too. I recoated after about 20 to 30 minutes, and following the final coat I let it sit a couple of hours before I put the steel rods in. I didn’t glue the rods into their holes in order to make them easier to remove for occasional cleaning. If you choose to, use epoxy.

I’m pretty satisfied with the results of the spice rack. The mahogany is beautiful. There is enough room for about 30 average-diameter spice bottles. There are lots of beautiful specialty bottles available online that you could fill your rack with if you want to further customize the look. Happy cooking! And enjoy the ease of your spice organization.

Click Here to download a PDF of the related drawings and Materials List.

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Small wooden toys make great gifts and they are fun to build. David makes several different articulating toys, but he especially likes making birds. Subscribers to Woodworker’s Journal can click here to get plans to make his penguin pull-toy.

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