Burning Through Sandpaper
This is what I had in mind when I said to remember all the goopy resin on the decks and gunwales. I've burned through a pile of sandpaper in the last 3 or 4 days and I've got most of the sanding done. I used the random orbital sander with 100 grit pads to knock most of the resin off and then worked up through 120, 150 and 180 grits by hand. I had nice weather the last two days so I moved outside to do the sanding. That keeps the sawdust out of the shop but more than that, natural sunlight shows sanding imperfections better than any lights I have inside the shop.
The picture of the whole boat is after I was done sanding and I had just vacuumed all the sawdust off of the boat. I then used a wet rag to further clean the wood and to get an idea of what the wood will look like when I get a finish on it. Sanding compresses the fibers of the wood and wetting the wood lets the fibers relax and stand up to be sanded down again. I wet the wood before sanding with the final fine grit before finishing. I'll stop at 220 grit on the cherry gunwales but the maple decks are so dense that I'm going to sand up to 300 or 400 to see just how smooth I can get them.