A customer complained my chair legs weren't smooth enough... changed my whole finishing process

I've been doing furniture finishing for about 6 years now, mostly chairs and tables. Last month a lady pointed out that she could feel tiny ridges on the legs of a dining chair I'd just finished. I was annoyed at first but then I ran my hand over it and she was right... I never really paid attention to legs before, just the seat and top. Now I sand everything with 220 grit after the final coat, even the parts nobody sees. Takes an extra 15 minutes per chair but the feel is way nicer. Has anyone else had a customer point out something you were totally missing?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_miles21d ago

Read a blog post once where a guy found rough spots he'd missed for years.

tylerlane22d ago

Hold on a second here. Did you ever run your hand over a leg before you finished it, like during the build stage, or was it only after the clear coat went on? I'm curious if the roughness was from the wood itself or from how the finish dried, because those are two different problems to solve. I had a customer complain once that a table leaf I made was slightly warped, and it turned out I was stacking my lumber wrong during the drying process. Sometimes the customer's complaint points to a mistake we made way earlier in the process, not just in the final sanding step.