Grit by Project Stage
SEP 01, 2026
Stop guessing at grit. This is the order of operations for a normal furniture flip on a 5 inch or 6 inch random orbital, from stripped carcass to finished top. Read down, not across.
The stage table
Every stage exists to erase the scratch pattern left by the stage before it. If a stage is not doing that, you are on the wrong grit.
| Stage | What it looks like when done | Grit range | Orca product that fits | Common mistake |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stripping old paint or heavy finish | Bare or nearly bare wood. No glossy islands of old topcoat left anywhere, including inside profiles and along the front edge. | 40 to 80 | Purple Ceramic 40, 60, 80 Or Ceramic Mesh 80 if the finish is gummy. Mesh clears loaded paint far better. | Going straight to 40 on a piece that only needed a chemical strip and 120. You cannot un-cut a 40-grit scratch quickly. |
| Leveling and flattening | Water rings, dents, cupped boards, and old repairs read flat when you sight across the top with a light behind them. | 80 to 100 | Purple Ceramic 80, 100 Ceramic holds its cut on hardwood tops instead of dulling after two minutes. | Leveling with the sander tilted onto one edge. That digs a dish you will not see until the finish goes on. |
| General smoothing | Surface feels uniform under a bare palm and every 80-grit scratch is gone under raking light. | 120 to 150 | Green Aluminum Oxide 120, 150 General purpose stage, so use the lower cost per disc here. | Treating 120 as a quick pass. This is the stage that actually decides how the piece looks. |
| Final smoothing before paint | Even, slightly toothy surface. Not polished. Paint and primer need something to key into. | 150 to 180 | Green Aluminum Oxide 150, 180 Ceramic Mesh 180 if you are sanding filler or primer and hate clogging. | Sanding to 320 before paint. Too slick, and adhesion suffers for no visual gain. |
| Final smoothing before stain | Wiped with mineral spirits, the surface shows even color with no bright streaks or swirl rings. | 180 to 220 | Purple Ceramic 180, 220 Consistent grain size matters most here, since every flaw shows through stain. | Going past 220 on softwood or on anything you plan to stain. Burnished fibers reject pigment and blotch. |
| Scuffing between coats of finish | Gloss is knocked back to a uniform haze with no shiny low spots left. Dust off, then recoat. | 320 to 400 | Ceramic Mesh 320, 400 Mesh does not load up with soft cured finish the way paper does. | Scuffing hard enough to cut through the coat you just laid down, especially on edges and corners. |
| Final cure buff | Nibs and dust specks are gone and the sheen is even across the whole panel. Wait for a full cure first. | 600 to 2000 | Purple Ceramic 600 to 2000 Non-Scratch Finishing Pads for hard wax oil buffing. | Buffing a finish that is dry to the touch but not cured. You will drag and smear it instead of polishing it. |
Never skip more than one grit step
The rule most flippers break, and the reason a piece looks fine bare and terrible once the finish goes on.
Each grit cuts a valley into the wood. A coarse grain cuts a deep, wide valley. A fine grain cuts a shallow one. The only job of the next grit up is to remove the previous grit's valleys completely and replace them with shallower ones. A grit can only do that if it is close enough in size to the one before it, which is why the standard woodworking guidance is to never skip more than one step in the sequence.
A safe ladder
- 80
- 120
- 150
- 180
- 220
A ladder that will bite you
- 80
- skip 120
- skip 150
- 180
Jumping 80 straight to 180 does not save time. The 180 grinds away for ten minutes trying to reach the bottom of scratches it was never sized to reach, and usually gives up before it gets there.
What a skipped grit looks like in raking light
Turn off the overheads. Put a single bright light almost flat against the surface, a shop light on the bench or a phone torch laid on its side, and sight down the panel from the opposite end. Deep leftover scratches throw long shadows and show up as a faint parallel or swirled pattern that the surrounding area does not have. This is the standard shop check and it takes about ten seconds.
Second check: wipe the area with mineral spirits. It darkens the surface the way a finish will, without raising the grain, and any scratch you missed jumps straight out. Both checks are worth doing before stain, because after stain your only option is to sand it all back.
Where to start, by piece type
Starting grit is the single biggest decision on a flip. Get it wrong on the coarse side and you cause damage. Get it wrong on the fine side and you waste a whole afternoon.
| Piece type | Start at | Stop at | Why, and what to watch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Solid wood, heavy old finish | 60 to 80 | 180 to 220 | You have real thickness to work with, so you can afford a coarse opening grit. Still strip chemically first where you can, since stripper is faster than 60-grit and leaves the profiles intact. Stop at 180 for softwoods like pine and fir, which burnish and then blotch under stain if you push to 320. |
| Veneer | 150 to 180 | 220 | Assume every wide flat panel on a mass produced piece is veneer until you prove otherwise. Strip chemically, never with coarse abrasive. Common refinishing guidance is to start no coarser than about 120 and work up, and on thin modern veneer even that is aggressive. Near edges and corners, switch to a hand block. See Sheet 03. |
| Previously painted, sound paint | 120 to 180 | 180 | If the existing paint is well stuck and you are painting again, you are only scuffing for adhesion, not removing. Clean and degrease first, then scuff. Ceramic Mesh is the pick here because paint clogs paper discs almost instantly. |
| Previously painted, failing or thick | 60 to 80 | 180 to 220 | Peeling, alligatored, or many coats deep means it all has to come off. Test any piece that could predate 1978 for lead before you sand it. If it tests positive, do not sand it, and look up the safe options for your area. |
| Laminate or foil over particleboard | 180 scuff only | 180 | Not wood, so there is nothing underneath worth exposing. Scuff lightly for grip, then use a bonding primer. Sanding through leaves a swollen chipboard patch that no filler hides well. |
Three habits that fix most bad sanding
- Let the tool's weight do the work. Pressing harder slows the orbit, builds heat, and leaves swirls.
- Keep the pad flat and always moving, roughly one inch per second, overlapping each pass by half.
- Change the disc when it stops cutting. A worn disc burnishes instead of sanding, and it is the cheapest thing on the bench.
Vacuum matters more than you think
Dust trapped between the disc and the wood becomes loose grit that cuts random deep scratches. Line up the disc holes with the pad holes, run extraction, and blow the panel off between grits so you do not carry 80-grit debris into your 180 pass. Ceramic Mesh discs are open across the whole face, so extraction works no matter how the disc lands on the pad.
Related guides
- Pad Color Code, which of the four Orca abrasives to reach for, and why
- Veneer Sand Through Guide, how to sand thin veneer without burning through it
- Sanding discs for woodworking, the full range, by material, size, and hole pattern
Ready to put the right grit on the pad for every stage?
