Sanding left a bunch of white sawdust embedded in cue. What do I do? What happened?

Paul Bell

Paul Bell

Well-known member
Cue_Mine w. white epecs.jpg

I sanded down a one-piece cue and it resulted in a bunch of white embedded in the cue. What can I do? What caused this?

I figure its due to white sawdust and I need to sand it down.

Comments? Yes, I am green and that is why I am posting here.






Cue w. white specs 2.jpg
 
Paul Bell said:
View attachment 903055
I sanded down a one-piece cue and it resulted in a bunch of white embedded in the cue. What can I do? What caused this?

I figure its due to white sawdust and I need to sand it down.

Comments? Yes, I am green and that is why I am posting here.






View attachment 903056
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Definitely wait til someone more experienced gives their thoughts. I think this white dust happens when you go too fine a grit of sandpaper. It gets super fine (like talc consistency) in the pores of the wood.

I've read about it before and had similar on some purple heart I was messing with. I used a brass wire brush to clean it out.
 
Compressed air is a good method.
Isopropyl alcohol will pull some natural oils out of the wood. Minimal but still.
Some would use a tack cloth but I always felt it left a residue.
 
Try sealing it with clear shellac, then polish it with a brown paper bag with no print or a dollar bill

It looks to be the substrate that was used to seal it, could be epoxy or shellac. Seal a small area with shellac and see if it polishes out
 
epoxypop said:
It looks to be the substrate that was used to seal it, could be epoxy or shellac. Seal a small area with shellac and see if it polishes out
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David in FL said:
If so, I'd expect to be able to continue sanding and remove it.
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I presume ExpoxyPop means to shellac what is in the picture? Anyway, I can try a small area.

I have gone beyond 220 grit and it is still there. I used 1000 grit today and it is very smooth but still a lot of white specks. I may continue with the sanding on a section and see what happens. I used a magic eraser near the butt end and it seemed to remove some specks. Nearer the tip, however, sanding didn't seem to do much except make it smoother and shinier.
 
Paul Bell said:
I presume ExpoxyPop means to shellac what is in the picture? Anyway, I can try a small area.

I have gone beyond 220 grit and it is still there. I used 1000 grit today and it is very smooth but still a lot of white specks. I may continue with the sanding on a section and see what happens. I used a magic eraser near the butt end and it seemed to remove some specks. Nearer the tip, however, sanding didn't seem to do much except make it smoother and shinier.
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Try shellac on a small area see if it works if you keep sanding you may end up with a tooth pick, so to say Your white specks are what was used to seal the wood. Experiment on a small section; let it dry buff it will something really fine. paper bag, dollar bill or 1200 to 1500 or 0000 steel wool. Usually when you finish you need a few coats, sanding with really fine paper , or very fine steel wool between coats to bond another coat and get a nice sheen,

Also, you might be being too careful jumping too far to a finer paper, sometimes you have to be rough . If you sand that forever with 1000 grit paper you will get no where. But be careful not to go too far and end up with a skinny cue
 
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epoxypop said:
Try shellac on a small area see if it works if you keep sanding you may end up with a tooth pick, so to say Your white specks are what was used to seal the wood. Experiment on a small section; let it dry buff it will something really fine. paper bag, dollar bill or 1200 to 1500 or 0000 steel wool. Usually when you finish you need a few coats, sanding with really fine paper , or very fine steel wool between coats to bond another coat and get a nice sheen,

Also, you might be being too careful jumping too far to a finer paper, sometimes you have to be rough . If you sand that forever with 1000 grit paper you will get no where. But be careful not to go too far and end up with a skinny cue
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I agree, do a small sample spot. If you keep sanding you will end up with a cue quite a bit smaller than what you started out with and depending on the consistency of your sanding you might not have continuous straight piece of wood anymore.
Did you try with a lint free cloth and isopropyl after first blowing the cue clean with compressed air? What grit are you using now?
 
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