The sanding work on a project like this is generally what takes the longest. It's a peaceful process, but I estimated that it would take about 7 hours in total.
I was pretty close; it took about 6 hours.
I went through 60, 80, 150, 220, 300, 400, 600, and finally 1200 grit papers.
The 60 was just for some final shaping and the 1200 was just a straight polish, but all of the others took a full sanding cycle each.
I applied a healthy coating of oil and what resulted was a spectacular final product.
