Wet wood to raise fibres?

[RedMist]

I have some machine planed wood that I am going to now use a mouse sander on to get truly smooth and flat (going through a sequence of grits).

Can/Should I wet the wood first and leave it for a while to encourage fibres to raise? I'm new to woodworking and can recall reading that somewhere and thinking it sounded a useful technique.

Thanks!

 

[Blockplane]

Just a damp cloth, don't wet it.

The technique has its place, but has to be used with care as it can cause the wood to distort, especially if thin - I did it on a harp soundboard once - never again!!!

Consider using sanding sealer as an alternative.

 

[rafezetter]

This technique is only really used if you are applying a waterbased stain, to both raise the fibres so they don't when you stain, and once wetted and sanded once or twice (DRY!! obviously) you can do it again with a barely damp cloth to condition the wood to take the stain more uniformly with certain species, pine being one of them.

If it's being sanded then painted, generally you can sand without this conditioning step and go straight to primer as you'll lightly cut back the first layer of primer anyway, and if waterbased it will do the same job as the conditioning before applying the second coat of primer.

 

[RedMist]

I'm thinking Danish Oil for finishing

 

[JJ1]

Wetting the wood won't be necessary for finishing with Danish Oil.

 

[Racers]

I scrape then Danish oil, rub with a Scotchbrite pad then Danish oil.

You can also apply Danish oil with a Scotchbrite pad to fill the grain, good with oak etc.

Pete

 

[Bodgers]

Has to be said I tried this on oak with a water based finish and it didn't work well for me. Even rubbed over with a damp cloth I found it raise the grain just too much, with way to much sanding afterwards. I suppose it is supposed to save you a coat of finish, but I got better results from just flattening down after the first coat.

 

[custard]

To take two extreme positions, there's a clear difference between timber that's been planed by hand with a recently sharpened iron, and timber that's been planed with a machine that's set on too fast a feed speed and is long overdue a knife resharpen (i.e. most PAR timber that you'll buy). The machine planed timber has had the fibres battered and crushed by the planing process, but the hand planed timber has had the fibres cleanly cut.

Consequently, you'll get far more raised grain and objectionable surface rippling when moisture is applied to badly machine planed timber than with it's hand planed equivalent.