I recently learned a nice little trick for cleaning up new pine soffits prior to applying oil based varnish. Many times on new constructions the newly installed soffits are dingy and dirty from laying around prior to installation I.E. boot prints, oily hand prints, black marks, you name it. I wish it weren't so. Some very uncomfortable sanding is usually implied, either using a power sander or elbow grease while killing your neck and shoulders. No bueno. Turns out if you apply some of your oil base varnish to those stains as you go along with your application, and spot sand the stain the oil actually helps pull out a lot of the stain making sanding out the dirt and prints sooooo much easier. Simply amazing vs. dry sanding. Yes, it's a little messy as if you're using a sanding block it will get covered in product. The benefits are worth it though. Wish I'd known this years ago. This allows you to do much of the clean up as you go along with your application, opposed to dry sanding everything and then coming back through a second time doing the actual applications. It won't work on everything, but for the superficial stuff... magical. Worth a try.
