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