If you are a builder, or if you simply have built something at some time in your life, you know that “smoothness” matters. If you’ve ever gotten one of those pesky splinters from sitting on a wooden chair or sliding your hand across an antique table, you might be silently muttering against whoever it was who didn’t sand all of those ragged edges out, because now your hand has been neatly skewered by a slivery (and often elusively hard to remove) fine bit of wood that will silently torture you under your skin until it eventually works its way out. Splinters may be tiny, but they can be enormously painful and can cause significant infection if not promptly removed.

Sanding rough boards therefore is a “must” to smooth out splinters and bumps before using a plank of wood in any kind of constr…