Shoutout to the old timer in Tulsa who told me to stop sanding pine with 120 grit

Jessica Taylor · 2026-10-16T15:40:05.374329+00:00

I was helping a buddy build a set of pine shelves for his garage in Tulsa last week and I grabbed my 120 grit paper like I always do and his neighbor who is 70 something and has been in the trade since he was 16 told me to stop. He said pine burns and clogs at 120 and you should start at 80 and finish at 150 and honestly the boards came out way cleaner with way less gumming on the paper. So now I'm stuck between two camps. Half the guys I know say start at 120 and never touch anything coarser because 80 digs too deep. The other half say 80 then 150 and the finish looks better on softwoods. I've now done it both ways on the same 12 boards and I swear the 80/150 batch had fewer swirl marks and took me less time overall because I wasn't fighting burnt paper. But maybe it's just that batch of lumber or my random orbital acting up. So I'm asking the guys who do this every day, what grit do you actually start at on pine and does it change if you're painting vs staining?

HW Forums

Loading…

Shoutout to the old timer in Tulsa who told me to stop sanding pine with 120 grit | Carpenters - HW Forums