Finishing

aaakev

Evening all. My son has a school project where they have all been asked to make a ship, we decided to make his out of wood. My wood working tools are limited so looking for some advice on finishing, what would smooth it all out?

We started with pine stripwood which we cut roughly to the shape we wanted and glued it together. We then cut off the excess and shaped with the dremel, drilled holes for the masts which will be made out of dowell.

What im looking for is how best to sand it down to a nice finish as the sides are quite rough from shaping with the dremel and blending the different pieces together.

Any and all advice appreciated!

Here is the progress so far

mobfromcork

If it's just a once off project you could buy a mouse sander for 25-35 Euro which would clean up the edges reasonable easily, especially if it's a softwood like pine. Otherwise a sanding block with paper should knock off the rough edges using an 80 and then a 120/240 grit to finish.
For the style of boat, maybe a polished finish mightn't be necessary. Some dark stain maybe or have a quick Google image of distressing wood using fire. (On phone so can't post picture). Can give it a nice aged look

aaakev

Mouse sander it is, wasn't sure what would work best and didn't seem to be making much progress hand sanding. Was looking there and might pick up the ryobi one+ mouse sander, we have been making things with wood all summer, a few bird houses and toy swords, axes, knives etc so it will be used again and will go with my other tools.

The fire idea is great, i think your right it will look better than staining.

Cheers

chillyspoon

I've got one of those little Ryobi ones - they're grand. I recommend getting two batteries so that you can swap them over when they go flat, or you'll go crazy after a while.

aaakev

Have 2 batteries for the drill and angle grinder so should be ok. Are they heavy on the batteries?

magicbastarder

unless you've a specific need for a battery powered one, why not go for a mains powered one?

chillyspoon

aaakev wrote: »

Have 2 batteries for the drill and angle grinder so should be ok. Are they heavy on the batteries?

Probably somewhere between the drill and the angle grinder. It's just that sanding can be a lengthy process depending on the project, so having two batteries is always handy.

magicbastarder's point is good too by the way - I've got a corded round random orbital sander (still a cheapo DIY one) for removing more material. The extra bit of oomph that usually comes hand in hand with a corded motor can save you a lot of time.

So for the cost of one semi-pro or pro level sanders I've got two cheapo ones that cover off both shapes (delta and round) and will keep me going for a couple of years of DIY level use.

Oh and don't expect good dust extraction at this level - the damn stuff does everywhere even with a vac attached!

aaakev

Well this is what we ended up with. I got my mates multi tool to sand it in the end which worked perfect and finished it with fire. Bit of craic so might try my hand at a few more projects over the winter

Zebbedee

Who is supposed to have done the project, you or your son?

_Brian

Zebbedee wrote: »

Who is supposed to have done the project, you or your son?

Doing it together is more important than anything.

Looks good, if more parents took time to get involved in their kids work like this it would be good for society

aaakev

Zebbedee wrote: »

Who is supposed to have done the project, you or your son?

We did it together, we discussed the idea, went and picked out the materials then got to it.

Granted i did all the cutting but he was helped with every other part. He did a load of sanding by hand, i came home from work one of the days last week and he had it out on the work bench for about an hour by the time i got home sanding away. He did most of the sanding with the multi tool and a fair bit of shaping with the dremel. The fire finish was all him, i couldn't take the thrill of using a blowtorch from an 11 year old!

At the end of it we had put probably 20 hours together into it, 20 fun hours with my son and he has something he is proud of.

If you have kids you should do something like this. most of the lads in his class are doing it with their parents whether its being made from wood or a milk bottle! My wife has done more school projects over the years than she cares to remember but this was my turn!

Zebbedee

aaakev wrote: »

We did it together, we discussed the idea, went and picked out the materials then got to it.

Granted i did all the cutting but he was helped with every other part. He did a load of sanding by hand, i came home from work one of the days last week and he had it out on the work bench for about an hour by the time i got home sanding away. He did most of the sanding with the multi tool and a fair bit of shaping with the dremel. The fire finish was all him, i couldn't take the thrill of using a blowtorch from an 11 year old!

At the end of it we had put probably 20 hours together into it, 20 fun hours with my son and he has something he is proud of.

If you have kids you should do something like this. most of the lads in his class are doing it with their parents whether its being made from wood or a milk bottle! My wife has done more school projects over the years than she cares to remember but this was my turn!

I couldn't agree with you more, no offense was intended.