Woodturning: Raising the Bowl Grain

Video Transcript

"One trick that you can try to do when you're sanding is to raise the grain. And water can be used to accomplish that. What I typically do is I'll spray a rag and I'll use that to just dampen the surface. And the reason I like to do that is the sand paper, as it cuts, it tends to lay the fibers down. And using the water helps, lets, lets those fibers pop back up again, and then it allows me to use the sandpaper to cut. Now the reason I don't spray the bowl entirely is I don't want to saturate my wood. I spent a long time getting the wood to dry, and I certainly don't want the bowl to get wet again. So that's why I use the rag. It also keeps the water from spraying all over my lathe and my equipment. And then I'll, I make sure that the area that I've wet is, you want it to be relatively dry. You don't want it to be sopping wet. And if you have to, use the air compressor to dry that area out. Because if it's soaking wet, all you're really going to do is clog up the sand paper."