I'm trying to finish a finishing job on a dresser; I abandoned the project (long story) a while ago after getting a few drawers done, and I've since lost the exact instructions I was following. After putting the polyurethane on the third drawer, I realized I must have used two coats of stain on the first drawers, so I sanded the thing with 60-grit sandpaper to get rid of the polyurethane and start over with the staining.
Thing is, while most of the drawer is looking fine and ready to be stained again, the shorter edges, which have a nice sloped curve to them (see images), look seriously scratched up, as if I were sanding against the grain or something. I always sand along the length of the drawer (which is rather tricky on the short edges), so I'm at something of a loss as to what's going on, especially as the longer edges (which are also sloped) look fine.
Here's what I'm talking about:
I doubt I'll care that much once it's all done, but it seems worth knowing: Is there something subtle about sanding edges like these that it looks like I'm missing?