Don't Jump Between Sandpaper Grits: The Sanding Sequence That Actually Works

Part 4 of the Artisan & Sons "Don'ts of Woodworking" series.

You've sanded for twenty minutes. The surface feels smooth under your hand. You apply the first coat of finish — and suddenly there are swirl marks and scratches everywhere that weren't visible before.

That's what happens when you skip sandpaper grits. And it's one of the most common finishing mistakes in beginner woodworking, because the scratches are nearly invisible on bare wood. The finish reveals them.

The fix isn't better technique. It's understanding what sanding actually does, and following the sequence.

What Grit Numbers Mean

Sandpaper grit refers to the size of the abrasive particles on the paper. Low numbers mean larger, coarser particles — they remove material fast and leave deep scratches. High numbers mean smaller, finer particles — they remove less material and leave progressively finer scratches.

80-grit removes mill marks and significant surface irregularities. 120-grit removes the scratches left by 80-grit. 150-grit removes the scratches left by 120-grit. 180-grit leaves a surface clean enough for most finishes on many species. 220-grit is a fine final pass for tight-grained woods or the smoothest possible surface under finish.

Each grit is removing evidence of the one before it. That's the whole point of the sequence. If you skip a grit, you skip removing those scratches — and the finish locks them in.

The Standard Beginner Sequence

For most solid wood furniture projects, this is your sequence:

80 → 120 → 150 → 180 → 220

Start at 80 or 100 if the surface has machine marks, planer tracks, or significant roughness. If the surface is already fairly clean from hand tools, you can start at 120.

The important rule: don't move to the next grit until the scratches from the previous one are gone. Sand in the direction of the grain for your final passes at each grit — particularly from 150 onward — so any remaining scratches run parallel to the grain and are less visible.

When you've finished at 180 or 220, wipe the surface with a clean dry cloth and look at it in a raking light (light hitting the surface at a low angle). This reveals scratches, swirl marks, and missed spots that look fine in normal light. Fix anything you see before finishing.

How to Know When to Move Up

Run your hand across the surface and look at it in raking light after each grit. The scratches from the current grit should be uniform — consistent depth and direction — with no deeper scratches from the previous grit still showing.

When you can't see any of the previous grit's work, you're ready to move up. Not before.

This takes longer than most beginners expect. Sanding properly at 80 or 120-grit — removing all the machine marks — is often where the most time gets spent. Rushing through the coarser grits to get to the finer ones skips the actual work. The finer grits can't fix what the coarser ones didn't do.

Species Makes a Difference

Not all wood sands the same way, and your finishing grit depends partly on what you're working with.

Open-grained species — oak, ash, walnut — have visible pores and a more textured surface by nature. On these woods, finishing at 180-grit is often enough, and going much finer can actually reduce the adhesion of some finishes.

Tight-grained species — maple, cherry, birch — are denser and show sanding scratches more readily. These benefit from going to 220 before finishing, and sometimes finer for very smooth film finishes.

When in doubt, look at the surface in raking light after each grit and let that guide you.

Always Sand With the Grain on Final Passes

Random orbital sanders are efficient and widely used, but they leave circular scratch patterns. On coarser grits, that's fine — the next grit removes them. But your final few passes at the end of the sequence should be by hand, sanding with the grain, to ensure no cross-grain scratches remain going into the finish.

For large flat surfaces like solid wood coffee table tops or dining table panels, this hand-sanding final pass makes a visible difference in the finished result.

What Skipping Actually Costs You

The cost of skipping grits isn't time saved — it's a finished surface you're not happy with. And fixing a surface after finish has been applied is significantly more work than sanding it properly before.

You have to let the finish dry fully, sand it back, address the scratches, and re-apply. Sometimes that means stripping back to bare wood.

Sand the grits. All of them. It's slower at the start and faster in the end.

The Beginner Takeaway

Don't start at a fine grit to save time. Start coarse enough to remove what's actually there, work through the sequence without skipping, and check your surface in raking light before the finish goes on.

The finish will show everything. Make sure everything is worth showing.

Next in the series: Don't Get Comfortable with Safety — why the tenth time at the table saw is more dangerous than the first.

Artisan & Sons crafts small-batch, made-to-order solid wood furniture in Saskatoon, Canada. Every surface that leaves our shop has been sanded properly — because on a handcrafted solid wood coffee table or a custom end table, the finish is what you see and touch every day. Browse the collection at artisanandsons.ca