Mick,

What is sanding but a process of using abrasives to make scratches on the surface of the boat. The trick is too keep up the process, making continuously finer and finer scratches to level out the surface so the resulting varnish surface will have a glass like reflection.

What I've done is to file those protruding staple points down to match the grit size of the paper I'm using. This takes some practice but after a while I got quite adept at it but it was a little time consuming. I now use shorter staples and a felt pad on the board. Don't have to worry about triming those pesky staple points.

Back and forth motion eh? Just when I got that random orbital motion down, now you tell me it's back and forth that gets thing smooth. I'll try it out.

Thanks,

Gary B. :)