Tips to reduce sanding time

[Kent A Bathurst]

Depending on the types of projects your doing, the single biggest help may be to just not sand so much. Going to 220 grit is pretty high, good for jewelry boxes and such I suppose, but totally overkill for say general tables, chairs, shelves, etc.. It's pretty rare that I go any higher than 150 grit on any project so I generally just use 2 grits 120/150.

good luck,
JeffD

Ditto. Mebbe 180 sometimes, but usually 150 is plenty.

[fRED mCnEILL]

I recently built a maloof style rocking chair. LOTS OF SANDING. What worked well for me was a Festool RO 150 sander. In rotary mode it can take off a LOT or wood and in RO mode gives a nice finish. Off the bandsaw and planer I used 180 grit then 220, 320,400, 500 and a wool polishing pad to burnish the wood. Prior to adding the finish the wood is shiny. It has a super finish finish. Unfortunately I can only afford one of these sanders(it is the 6") but will eventually get the 5" and 3". The 6" works well enough, just a little more difficult to use in tight spaces. I recently made quite a number of cutting boards/serving trays and used this sander almost exclusively. Piece of cake. To tell you the truth, with the proper tools sanding CAN be enjoyable.

regards

Fred

[John TenEyck]

For me the purchase of a drum sander was a game changer. You don't know flat and smooth until you see what comes out of a drum sander. Now, pretty much every piece of stock goes through my drum sander before building. The other revelation for me was getting a ROS. Never had one all these years; now that I do I can't imagine every going back. Hand planes for finishing the surface? I'm not that good. I always get tear out and or scallops or some other defect. For what you pay for one high end hand plane you could buy a Festool sander, or buy the Bosch and have money left over. Scraper? Sure, for a small area. Plus you have to sharpen both of them. For covering ground fast with consistent, excellent results I'll stick with my Bosch 6" ROS. A 6" sander has 44% more surface area than a 5" one. I've used several different brands of discs. Klingspore cuts great and lasts a long time, Mirca is OK but short lived, Abranet mesh seems great but I haven't used much yet, and Diablo from the BORG works surprisingly well IMHO. In any case, sandpaper doesn't need sharpening; when it gets dull you just put on a new disc and move on.

120 grit through the drum sander, start with the ROS at 100 grit (yes, to get rid of the linear scratches), 150 to finish for oak, ash, and similar coarse grained woods. 180 grit for woods like cherry, maple, and walnut. Finer than that makes no sense with a film finish.

John

[Mike Schuch]

I have 2 Porter cable 6" random orbit sanders and 1 AEG 6" random orbit sander. The 6" right angle random orbit sanders are considerably more powerful and considerably faster than the 5" random orbit I used. I keep a different grit on each sander so I can hit one side of a project with 3 different grits before I have to rotate the project. The 6" random orbits use peel and stick sand paper which is a lot cheaper than the hook and loop paper. Having multiple random orbit sanders makes peel and stick much more practical. I only bought one of the 6" sanders new, the other 2 I picked up used for a good price.

I also have 3 Rockwell/Porter Cable half sheet sanders that I use for large flat areas. These are not as aggressive as the 6" random orbit sanders but the large sanding surface of a half sheet make them productive on large surfaces and I am much less likely to gouge the wood with them.