However, within this category you’ll find the widest range of quality and performance. The do-it-all abrasive, Al-O is suitable for wood, metal, cured finishes, even stripping off old paint. In humid conditions, the grit can flake off the paper. This makes the paper unsuitable for wet-sanding. In addition, water-soluble hide glue is used to attach the abrasive to the paper. Garnet wears quickly, making it less suitable for heavy sanding or for metal work. Garnet crystals are friable, meaning that they fracture in use, exposing additional small, sharp edges. This attribute can help create a more consistent scratch pattern. Unlike harder abrasives, the larger grains are more likely to break out before creating coarser scratches. In this case, garnet’s relative softness is an advantage. (See “Making Sense of Sandpaper Scales,” page 59.) A few rogue grains can create scratches even as you sand others out. The older CAMI (Coated Abrasives Manufacturer’s Institute) grit grading allows a wider particle-size spread than the FEPA (Federations of European Producers of Abrasives) grading system. Their claims may have a few grains of truth. Old-school woodworkers claim that the naturally occurring mineral produces a “softer” scratch pattern. For oil, 220 grit will often be fine enough, but for blotch-prone woods such as cherry, you may want to step up to 320 or 400 grit. For a film-forming finish, 150 or 180 grit is usually fine enough. Realize that sanding’s primary purpose is erasing mill marks and other surface blemishes. You may be able to stop sanding sooner and achieve the same results. Like the food at an “All-You-Can-Eat, $3.99” buffet, more sanding isn’t necessarily a good thing. From there, manufacturers offer different combinations of backings and bonders to help the abrasive cut longer without clogging or falling off. Abrasives boil down into four main categories. Understanding the cutting qualities of each abrasive type can help you find the right sandpaper for the job.ĭon’t let all those colors in the sandpaper section or catalogs throw you. With each back-and-forth pass of the sanding block or disk rotation, the abrasive grains work like miniature cutters, shaving off hundreds of chips (called swarf). All about abrasivesĪlthough the teeth are significantly smaller, sandpaper is a cutting tool not unlike saw blades and router bits. This primer can help you finish faster and with better results. All good reasons to give sandpaper a closer look. Add up the cost of a career’s worth of disks, belts, sheets, and rolls and you might find the price tag approaching the cost of a cabinet saw. The right abrasives-in the appropriate grits-can help rub out brush marks and dust nibs from finished surfaces, scrub rust from machines, even sharpen planes and chisels. In most shops, sandpaper does a lot more than just raise sawdust. Few of us enjoy it, even fewer enjoy talking about it, but no one can deny the contribution it makes to the look (and feel) of a finished project. Before you stockpile any more sandpaper, make sure what you do buy (and apply) is the right stuff.ĭespite its importance, sanding may be the most under-appreciated step in the project-building process. “Running through grits” not only means going from coarse to fine, but also matching the abrasive to the job. What you need to know about sandpaper for a faster, finer finish
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