Oh. I was gonna tell you: I haven't found a thing wrong with sanding the shafts down with a very high-grit sandpaper, either. Like I said, I don't even think I prepped the shafts the first go-around (other than cleaning them with alcohol)... but when I re-did them, I had to sand all the old stuff away and take them back to the bare shaft again. I had no problems sanding them down -- again, with a very high-grit paper. I'm not sure what it was, but you almost couldn't feel the grain on it.