An exercise in being meticulous...for us newbies

Sanding, rusticating, sandblasting, buffing, etc. All here.
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Growley
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An exercise in being meticulous...for us newbies

Post by Growley »

I thought I'd post an exercise I put myself through today that taught me some great lessons. Hopefully someone out there will benefit from it as well.

I know when I'm sanding, staining, buffing and polishing my pipes I've got a lot of things to think about: Am I sanding too much off, is my shape right, am I applying too much stain, is the stain dripping on the floor, do I have enough compound on my buffs, do I need to apply more? All that to say, it's easy to loose sight of perfection when you've got that much going on.

I decided to follow my same processes on a 1" cube of wood...and my finish turned out much much better. When you work on something that small you are forced to focus on the details one inch at a time. I found I still had scratches from my 220 before I went to my 320. I found that I wasn't buffing long enough on the wheels and I found that with an object that small I was no longer looking at the surface, but into it. I could see the grain showing itself more each step I took.

I'm going to try to take this approach on my pipes from here out. No, I don't mean cut them into 1" cubes. I plan on really looking at them, really studying them before and after each step. I thought I was doing this before...but it's clear from my 1" exercise that I wasn't.

Try it... see if it helps you.
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hawky454
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Re: An exercise in being meticulous...for us newbies

Post by hawky454 »

Nice insight.
Go hang a salami I'm a lasagna hog.
Archer
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Re: An exercise in being meticulous...for us newbies

Post by Archer »

Interesting...I have learned the art of "slowing down"...in today's society you are taught that you "have it your way, right away" and this does not mix with pipe-making or woodworking in general. :D
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taharris
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Re: An exercise in being meticulous...for us newbies

Post by taharris »

I agree.

I have found that since I started focusing on each detail rather than just getting the pipe done that my work has improved a lot.

It's a good lesson in this fast paced world.

Todd
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Sasquatch
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Re: An exercise in being meticulous...for us newbies

Post by Sasquatch »

This is the right approach for sure, Growley, but it has to be tempered with a "stand back and look at it" approach too - if you are treating some certain area for scratches, it's easy to sand them out and walk away without realizing that you've fudged the shape of the pipe a little bit.
ALL YOUR PIPE ARE BELONG TO US!
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