Planing and Sanding

Workshop Tip No. 3

When shaping a piece of wood, whenever possible, sand or plane down to a line. Lines are best applied with a ballpoint pen as  they tend not to indent the surface like a pencil and can be easily removed with fine abrasive paper. Remember work to a line.

It is very easy to get carried away whilst happily listening to that therapeutic sound of wood-shavings parting company with your latest creation, but bear in mind  the difficulty off putting those shavings back after planing away too much!!

Planing to a line alleviates this problem as it is easy to see how much wood has been taken off and how much is left to come off.