fuzzy maple

[jeffpNC]

I have some “curly” maple I’m using for a bathroom vanity.

I’m having trouble getting all of the surface smooth and ready for finishing. Most of it is fine…but there are “trouble spots” that I don’t know how to deal with.

Not surprisingly, these trouble spots are in areas that are “figured” or “curly”. That said…there are lots of areas that are even more figured where there is no problem at all.

The picture shows one such area. This board has been planed on the “fine” setting with my DW735, and hand planed and card scraped and sanded ( and cursed at ). Nothing I have tried has completely solved this.

So far, card scraper with NO SANDING seems to get me closest to a good finish…but there are still these trouble spots.

These few spots seem to just “want” to be fuzzy like this. When I have used other boards from this batch, I have always been using smaller and more narrow pieces, and was able to work around them. This project needs some larger pieces, making it less practical to be that picky.

BTW, this is "soft" maple if that matters to the solution.

[wdwerker]

 The first coat of your finish will stiffen those fibers and when you sand between coats it will smooth out just fine.

[jeffpNC]

OMG, really?  I just assumed it would be an unholy mess if I didn't get it smooth BEFORE the finishing started.

[Eric.]

Just looks like figure to me, of course I can't reach my hand out and touch it so maybe it's worse than it appears. Could be silver maple...that stuff is trash and has working properties more similar to poplar than other higher quality soft maples like red and big leaf. It sounds like you've covered all your bases...one thing you didn't mention is to what grit you've sanded. I'd try 220 and then call it quits. It just won't get any smoother for practical purposes. Move on to finish and after a few coats all you'll feel will be the smoothness of the film of finish instead of the fuzziness of the wood.

Edit:

Never mind. Just got a closer look on a bigger picture. That's tearout. Get a shelix head or a drum sander or master the smoothing plane. It would take the rest of your life to sand that out with an ROS.

[gee-dub]

I'm with Eric's "Edit:" statement.  If your smoothing plane is leaving that, sharpen up.  If your card scraper is leaving that, sharpen up.  If you are where we all have been in your hand tool sharpening or using curve, a bit of one pound cut shellac will stiffen those fibers up and you can gently sand them smooth.

Shellac . . . its the aspirin of woodworking; a miracle drug.  Make friends with it.  It can do so many things.

[jeffpNC]

Just a follow up to say thanks.

I did two coats of Zinser Bullseye de-waxed shellac, with light sanding in between, followed with Minwax clear satin lacquer from a spray can. Came out better than I expected.

The “fuzzy” areas never got as good as the non-fuzzy areas, but at least they ceased to be an eyesore that was ruining the piece.

Never would have guessed that starting to apply finishes before I had "finished" sanding/planing/scraping would go this well.

[Ronn W]

You might try an application or 2 of Aqua Coat.  It dries clear and fast and I have applied to trouble spots after a coat of finish.  If the imperfections aren't too deep it may come out smooth.