Finally Did It - Power Sanding

[John Hart]

So...after about a year and a half since I started turning, I finally got my power sanding stuff. Last year, John Timberlake and I took a road trip to meet Robert Mickley, and he introduced us to his power sanding method....And I swore that I would get the same setup after seeing the miraculous transformation of a cherry bowl in just a couple minutes.

Ok...So it took me a year....after battling with hand sanding and a half a dozen makeshift power sanding failures...I am now fully equipped with a dedicated drill, a pneumatic die grinder and a pneumatic Random Orbital sander....And I finally bought the power sanding stuff from turningwood.com.
This set contains all the grits up to 800 and two 2" sanding heads. This will get me started...and really...for the price, I am an absolute idiot for not doing it sooner. Now all my excuses are gone.;)
54700

[Steve Schlumpf]

John, last July I stopped in at Rockler in St. Paul while visiting our son and his family and picked up two 2" pads and 80, 180 & 220 grit sanding disks. Been using my cordless drill and it sure makes life easier when finishing a bowl! You're going to love it! Now you have to find a place to buy the disks in bulk cause you can go through them in a hurry! Have fun with it!

[Keith Burns]

John, I've had great results from the turningwood discs. I do seem to go thru a lot of the 80 grit though, wonder why:rolleyes:

[Bernie Weishapl]

John I did the same thing after turning a year and hand sanding everything. I bought a 90 deg angle drill, a 2" and 3" hook and loop holder. Got everything to 400 grit. Wow what a difference. Nice gloat John.

[Brad Kimbrell]

As many have said, it's easy to wear out those 36 and 60 grit "turning tools" when you use 'em as much as I do!

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Congrats John! I sure like my power sanding device!

[Mike Ramsey]

John, I've had great results from the turningwood discs. I do seem to go thru a lot of the 80 grit though, wonder why:rolleyes:

When I attended SWAT in Sept, I wondered over to the Turningwood
booth & met Steve the owner, I bought several grits from him & he
loaded me up with extra 80 grit for free....Some how he knew that
80 was my most favorite grit!!

[Jason Christenson]

Um...where are the rest of the pics?:D

[Dominic Greco]

John,
If you really want to save a boat load of money, try ordering 1 meter x 1 yard sheets of velcro backed sandpaper from Industrial Abrasives.com (http://commerce.riverweb.com:8002/HNLsandpaper.html). You can get it in grit sizes from 80 to 600 at about $15 per sheet. I purchased 1 sheet each of 100, 150, 220, 300, 400 and 600 grit several YEARS (yes,....years) ago and haven't used it all up yet.

Now you're thinking, "If I buy it in sheets, I'll have to punch out discs." :D Nope, all you need to do is cut them up square and use them like you would those "wave discs". The corners act like the waves on the wave discs. I cut up about 30 or so of each and store them in zip lock bags.

My friend Mark Kauder (of WC fame) clued me into this source several years ago and since then I haven't looked back.

[Gary DeWitt]

Great gloat, John. I've been procrastinating on power sanding for some time now too, and just ordered discs and holders from craftsupply. Looks like you got a better deal though. Let us know how you like the paper when you've used it for awhile.
Re: all the jeers about 60 & 80 grit, I say hey, whatever it takes to get the piece finished! You can nit pick technique all day long while I finish several bowls.

[Brad Hammond]

you'll love em!! these things are great!

[Reed Gray]

I would suggest that you get pads to go on the mandrils that you have. The pads are much cheaper to replace than the whole mandril. I get my sanding supplies from VincesWoodNWonders. His blue sanding discs are film and not paper, and have the most consistant grit of any of the discs that I have used. They also last about twice as long as any other disc I have used. He recomended to me that I use slower drill speeds as I sand, in the 600 rpm range. The slower speeds are more effective at removing stock, and you don't skip over anything. Also, use the firm pads for the coarser grits, and the softer pads for the finer grits (220 and up). Power sanding is so much faster.

As someone else said, "80 grit is a turning tool".

robo hippy

[Frank Kobilsek]

I have to second Reed's endorsement of Vince's 'blue discs'. I have used Crafts Supplies Artisan discs and Steve's mentioned above and a couple others and I am really impressed with what Vince is selling.

Good gloat ... some demostrator somewhere said 'Use sandpaper like someone else was paying for it' its good advice.

Frank

[John Hart]

Thanks all....I'm looking forward to giving it a try. Probably not for a couple days though. Got some other priorities to attend to.:rolleyes:

Cutting discs out of a larger sheet sure sounds like my cup of tea...although, I'm a little concerned about the price Dominic. I paid $2.50 for 10 discs and if I buy them in quantities of 50, they are $11. I'll check out all these links guys. I want to save every dime I can!!!

As far as pics of the other stuff Jason....well...um...That's just pure unadulterated laziness....not to mention they are cheap tools and ya'll will make fun of me.:)

Thanks again!:)

[Dominic Greco]

...

Cutting discs out of a larger sheet sure sounds like my cup of tea...although, I'm a little concerned about the price Dominic. I paid $2.50 for 10 discs and if I buy them in quantities of 50, they are $11. I'll check out all these links guys. I want to save every dime I can!!!....

John,
A 1 meter (39.37") x 1 yard wide sheet of velcro backed sandpaper costs about $15. From that one sheet I can cut approximately (342) 2" square "discs". That works out to a per disc cost of $0.02 each. So for (50) of them it would cost $2.00. Now that's what I call a real savings!:D

[John Hart]

John,
A 1 meter (39.37") x 1 yard wide sheet of velcro backed sandpaper costs about $15. From that one sheet I can cut approximately (342) 2" square "discs". That works out to a per disc cost of $0.02 each. So for (50) of them it would cost $2.00. Now that's what I call a real savings!:D

Oh!!!! Well...That's different! From your original post, it looked like you only got 30 out of a sheet. My bad. 342 is somewhat more than 50. :D

[Pat Doble]

I went with the large sheets also (on Domonic's advice, I believe, from a post a few months ago). Aside from the huge savings, it's nice to be able to cut whatever size discs you may need - as well as any other shapes/scraps that may work for a given piece. I cut 2 or 3 rows of each grit off the sheets, rolled the rest back up and should be set for some time... Just another one of the great tips I picked up from the helpful members of The Creek. I'm sure you can find something else Abyss related to spend the 'savings' on :D ...

[Joe Melton]

I think Dominic's math is a little rocky. Dividing the sheet (39.37 x 36") by four square inches (2x2" pieces) gives 354, not 342. Dividing $15.75 (current price) by 354 gives about 4.4 cents each, using my $100 calculator. Fifty at 4.4 cents is about $2, so Dominic and I got to the same place, just via different routes. Regardless, it looks like a sweet deal.
If anyone is interested in sharing an order, let me know, and I'll take care of the logistics. I'm not interested in storing a large amount of sandpaper for several years!
Joe

[John Hart]

I may take you up on that co-op Joe. Sounds like a great way to spread out the payments.;)

Now, here's another thing that Robert Mickley said during our visit....that he had tried other vendors and ran into a problem with temperature causing the velcro to melt down. His final decision to stick with this stuff is its resistance to high temperature. The sandpaper is stamped "High Temp" as well. So I'm wondering, are any of you seeing a degradation of the velcro due to temperature?

I'm sure that at the 80, 100, 120 level, temperature shouldn't be an issue, but at 400 and above, it's pretty easy to generate some heat.

[Dominic Greco]

John,
Usually when I'm not careful about the heat, that's when I see the velcro on the sandpaper start to loose it's grip.

IMHO, the heat beats up the velcro on the sanding disc WORSE. So I got a couple of those CSUSA sanding pads to sit between the sanding disc and the sandpaper. I bought the medium, and the firm one.

Bottom line, be careful of applying too much pressure, or trying to sand at too high an RPM. Excessive heat can cause more that just problems with the velcro. It can "harden" (if that's the appropriate term) the wood and make it almost impossible to remove scratches

[Dominic Greco]

I think Dominic's math is a little rocky. Dividing the sheet (39.37 x 36") by four square inches (2x2" pieces) gives 354, not 342. Dividing $15.75 (current price) by 354 gives about 4.4 cents each, using my $100 calculator. Fifty at 4.4 cents is about $2, so Dominic and I got to the same place, just via different routes. Regardless, it looks like a sweet deal.....


1 Yard = 36 inches. 36/2 = 18 OK?

39.37 divided by 2 = 19.65. Since you don't want one 0.65 inch wide piece, round to 19

So you can have (18) 2" high rows x (19) 2" wide columns. 18 x 19 = 342

$15.75/sheet divided by 342= .046 ====> $0.05/disc
(Thanks! Didn't know the price went up $0.75!)

Does that make more sense?

[John Hart]

Ok...thanks Dominic. So the pads that you put between the disc and the sandpaper, I assume that this is what Reed is talking about above?:confused: I'll get 'r done.;)

I'll try to watch my speed...but, I'm sorta.. umm.. Velocity Challenged.:o

[John Hart]

....Dividing $15.75 (current price) by 354 gives about 4.4 cents each, using my $100 calculator....


Hah!!!! I just did the same equation with my $6 Casio calculator and came up with the same answer you did!!! I knew I got a good deal on this thing!! Woo Hoo!!!:D

[Ken Fitzgerald]

I'm sitting here with 2 slide rules.......I'll catch up later this year and verify your numbers...if I can remember the rules for rounding off when doing division on a slide rule.........