How to Sand a Kitchen or Bath Cabinet

There are a whole host of reasons to why you may need to sand down cabinets in your home.  The most common is because you want to paint or re-stain them.

How to Sand a Kitchen or Bath Cabinet

Here are the steps to follow to get the best results.

  1. Remove the cabinet doors you want to sand and remove all the hardware from the doors. Place in a bucket to keep track of all the pieces and parts.

  2. Place the doors on a table to work from. Using a combination of sandpaper and sanding sponges start your sanding with a 60-grit paper and sponge to remove larger imperfections, paint, stain and so on.  If the doors are completely flat, you can speed the process up by using an oscillating or random orbit sander.  I would avoid these on cabinets doors with detailing as you can change the look of the door by being too aggressive.

  3. After the first few passes with the 60-grit change to 100 grit paper to get the doors as smooth as possible. This process is the same for the frames of the cabinets as well.

  4. After you are happy with the sanded doors wipe them down with a tack cloth to remove all dust from the doors. If painting I would prime them first, if staining, wipe the doors with a damp rag with mineral spirits and then apply your stain and finish following the instructions on the cans.

 

Materials:

Bucket
Sanding Sponge
60-grit sandpaper
100-grit sandpaper
Oscillating sander
Random orbit sander
Tack cloth
Primer
Rag
Mineral spirits
Published 8/6/21
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