Cleaning wood before painting

[stealthwolf]

I’ve sanded down the window boards (ended up using a hot air gun and scraper, then sanded over). Need to fill some cracks and gaps. Will sand after that too. What should I use to clean the wood from dust after vacuuming?

American sites talk about mineral spirits but in the UK we have white spirit or methylated spirits. Or should I just use a damp microfibre cloth?

 

[Justin Passing]

Traditionally you made a "tack rag" with a little white spirit on a non-fluffy cloth. For a water-based paint it would have to be thorougly dry though, so you might get more dust by then. Meths works and is much quicker to dry. You might pass out though . You can also buy tack rags - no idea what's on those.
Anything with water will raise the grain, so no to that.
But a thinned coat of acrylic primer, if you were going to use water based anyway, is very fast to put on, shows any irregularities, and will be dry in minutes. Flatting that off with fine fine paper should give you a sealed, smooth surface to go from. A bit fussy but very quick and satisfying.
Use a woodflex filler - though the boards will move and reopen cracks eventually.

 

[stealthwolf]

But a thinned coat of acrylic primer, if you were going to use water based anyway, is very fast to put on, shows any.
Use a woodflex filler - though the boards will move and reopen cracks eventually.

Thanks. I ended up using a microfibre to clean as much as possible and then painted a couple of coats of acrylic primer undercoat. Looks good so far. I did use ronseal 2-part wood filler. Hope it works okay.