What am I doing wrong with this stuff? Is it just me or is it really, really horrible to use? I've heard it's a good idea to use it for denibbing between coats (which I've done on almost everything I've finished with Mike G's magic mix) and Paul Sellers also uses it for applying furniture polish or paste wax or something (can't remember now) after doing a few coats of shellac.
When I use it (this stuff specifically: https://www.liberon.co.uk/product/steel-wool-0000/), it disintegrates fairly quickly and lots of black bits of wool go into any open pores of oak. If I use it for paste wax I end up with a waxy wiry mess.
If you look closely at the photos of my first box, you can see bits of the oak grain that look a bit black. It's more obvious in real life than in the photo.
Close-up taken in bad light...
That's wire wool remains that I couldn't get back out.
When finishing the most recent box I instead used some 600 grit sandpaper and that seemed a lot easier, although I've no idea whether it does the job right.
Is there something I'm doing wrong with the way I use it? I cut off a length from the roll, probably about 100 mm at a complete guess, then roll it up and rub it along the grain of the wood. I then get the vacuum cleaner (or sometimes air compressor) out to get rid of the resulting mess.