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Is there any technique for using the steel wool like this? Wouldn't it scratch the wood?

It even shows up in dress fabrication on Project Runway!!!

There are different grades of steel wool just like sandpaper.

http://home.howstuffworks.com/steel-wool.htm

I would advise against steel wool on wood. It will take a year or two to show but when you use steel wool on wood tiny fragments of the wool will break off and get into the wood. They don't need to be large fragments, in fact you will not see them. But the steel will oxidize and you will get black spots on your otherwise beautiful wood. When I stripped the wood details in my 1903 Limestone apartment I used chemicals and rubber tipped dental tools. Time consuming, hard work and well worth it. I use it on Metal though, didn't know about porcelain.

I, too, have read a lot of caveats on using steel wool in wood refinishing. The main reasoning I've found is that the steel wool leaves uneven discoloration on the wood.

There is brass wool for use on wood.

Do not use steel wool on something you want to really do a nice job on. As others have said, rust will appear - frequently in less than a year. If you are going to apply boiled linseed oil or tung oil, synthetic steel wool is a much better option. This is made of a plastic that won't leave stains.

As for grading - the roughness of the steel wool is graded on a number scale. 3 is the most coarse, down to 0, which is usually "fine" and then 00, 000, and 0000 - progressively finer. This fine grades are what you will want to use for finishing.

Rubber tipped dental tools! That must have taken forever and required the patience of a zen master.
The little oxidized bits can be charming if you are going for an aged or wabi sabi look.

Not good to use on all woods, some species are porous so steel wool should be avoided. Also, furniture makers after a certain point started to put a factory cured polyurethane finsih on wood in this case you would not want to take steel wool to this finish, any striping should be left to a professional.

Always follow steel wool with a tack cloth. I've never had problems with steel wool, but then I always use a tack cloth =)

I have a mcm teak dresser that was "fixed" by the folks at the store using oil steel wool. it's been a year and still looks great - will report if I see any rusting!

Is there something wrong with sand paper that I'm not aware of?