Sanding oak the right way is essential for achieving a flawless, long-lasting finish—whether you’re preparing oak shelves, furniture, or any internal timber project. In this detailed tutorial, Benjamin from Planks will walk you through the correct tools, techniques, and tips to get a smooth, professional-grade finish every time.
👉 In This Video:
🎥 Whether you’re a DIY enthusiast or a professional woodworker, this guide is packed with practical advice to help you get the most out of your oak.
We exclusively stock solid hardwoods. Hardwoods are the strongest, most durable and aesthetic woods for use in the home, but are the hardest to buy on the high street.
This includes everything from oak and walnut to maple and iroko. Explore the full range here →
All our planks of wood are Kiln Dried and Planed All Round (PAR). This means every piece has a moisture content of 8-12%, so they’re not prone to movement or cracking. They’re planed for a flat and smooth surface. Then cut to your exact size dimensions and square edged, ready for joinery or treatment.
As all planks are Kiln Dried and Planed All Round (PAR), they are designed for internal use or external use. Unlike air dried or green wood, which isn’t dried to a low enough moisture content to ensure it doesn’t move in the ambient temperature of our homes, Kiln Dried is ready for use.
Whether you’re looking for planks to make shelves, perform glue joint joinery or even a chopping board, our boards are ready for use.
Yes. All boards are suitable for exterior use. We’d recommend purchasing a protective treatment, such as danish oil or a strong varnish, which has UV filtering to help protect the wood discolouring from the elements.
Awesome! It depends what you want to build. Assuming you want to start with some simple joinery, such as building tabletops, we’d recommend getting your basic tools and treatments: sash clamps, glues, sanders and oils. It’s useful to have some power tools on hand, namely a handheld planer and a drill.
If you’re not sure where to start, try out our Woodworker Starter Pack, which has everything you need to try your hand at some simple joinery.
We deliver to all UK postcodes.
We are based in London, UK, and dispatch most orders via a third party courier (UPS). All deliveries are free for orders over £100 or £6 for orders under.
We produce oak planks and shelves within 1-2 weeks if they are in stock.
Joinery orders, such as panels, tables and worktops, exotic hardwoods and out of stock items will take an additional week (2-3 weeks total).
We send most orders via UPS, which is a Next Day Service for almost all UK postcodes.
If your order has arrived damaged or defected, we will cover the cost for you to return the item to us for a replacement or refund.
Unfortunately, as every order is cut-to-size and made custom to requirements, we cannot accept returns.
We don’t currently have trade accounts, as Planks is designed with the DIYer in mind. However, if you’d like to order frequently at higher volumes, get in touch at hello@getplanks.co.uk with your requirements and we’ll see what we can do to help you.
You can contract us using the live chat on the website in the bottom right of your screen. We’ll get back to you within 24 working hours. Alternatively, drop us an email at hello@getplanks.co.uk.