Sanded body too fine

[j mascis]

Hey all. I am building my first guitar and encountered a potential problem. I didn't know you're only supposed to sand to 320 grit, so I used micromesh to sand the body to like 12000 (not sure what this is in traditional sandpaper). Can I go over this with a rougher grit like 320 to go backward? I'm using a water based dye so concerned at 2000 it won't seep into the wood. Glad I caught this before applying it, but not sure if it's fixable. Thanks.

[oid]

Hey all. I am building my first guitar and encountered a potential problem. I didn't know you're only supposed to sand to 320 grit, so I used micromesh to sand the body to like 12000 (not sure what this is in traditional sandpaper). Can I go over this with a rougher grit like 320 to go backward? I'm using a water based dye so concerned at 2000 it won't seep into the wood. Glad I caught this before applying it, but not sure if it's fixable. Thanks.

The reason one does not sand very fine before the finish is that the finish will raise the grain and you undo all your hard work getting that 12000 grit finish. It should not cause any problems with your finish, just wipe it down with alcohol/naptha or the like to remove any oils and dust and continue as normal. If you are feeling paranoid and want to play it safe there is no reason not to give it a once over with 320 but I would not bother. Making sure the wood is free of dust and oils from your fingers is the main thing to be aware of at this point and the coarser dust of 320 grit is easier to remove than the fine fine dust of micromesh.

At times I do sand some woods to a very fine finish before applying a finish, mainly so I can get a good look at the wood and decide on how I will finish it.

[j mascis]

Awesome, thank you.

[epizootics]

The alternative is to raise the grain a couple of times by wetting the whole body with warm mater and sanding it back to a fine grit once dry prior to applying the finish. You need to get it pretty wet for the process to be effective, a lot of people are too shy with their wet rag. This gives you more control once you apply a water-based stain or finish, and will save you some of the messy sanding that can result in an uneven stain.