Your favorite paper for hand-held sanding?

[roger wiegand]

I need better sandpaper for hand sanding on the lathe. I use the blue or green disks for Vince's for power sanding and they work quite well for me. They are also good when hand held, bit it doesn't seem to make sense to pay for small disks with velcro backing when I only need a plain paper.

A couple years ago I bought the bargain box from Klingspor and have been working my way through it, hating every minute. The stuff I got is on a way too heavy backing, won't hold a curve (cracks to a sharp angle when you fold it over), and doesn't last for beans. Well, it was real cheap.

I use Abranet disks on my ROS mostly, for turnings I've found it to be overly flexible and slow. It really doesn't seem to like it if you push too hard and heat it up.

So what have you found that you really like? I want extremely uniform grit (hate that one deep scratch), as fast as possible, it should last long enough to sand a modest size piece with a few square inches of paper, and it should be fast (yes, I said that twice). Within limits, I don't much care how much it costs if it gets the sanding done sooner rather than later with a great result.

I only need anything below 120 grit on bad days, but want to go up to at least 800. (Abralon seems good for the very high grits.)

[Richard Coers]

Try the SiaSoft that Vince sells. 1/4" foam back with a really flexible cloth backer on the abrasive.

[Dave Fritz]

https://www.woodturnerscatalog.com/p...-Paper-10-Pack I cut it down into smaller sizes and a little goes a long way.

[tom lucas]

I need better sandpaper for hand sanding on the lathe. I use the blue or green disks for Vince's for power sanding and they work quite well for me. They are also good when hand held, bit it doesn't seem to make sense to pay for small disks with velcro backing when I only need a plain paper.

A couple years ago I bought the bargain box from Klingspor and have been working my way through it, hating every minute. The stuff I got is on a way too heavy backing, won't hold a curve (cracks to a sharp angle when you fold it over), and doesn't last for beans. Well, it was real cheap.


I use Abranet disks on my ROS mostly, for turnings I've found it to be overly flexible and slow. It really doesn't seem to like it if you push too hard and heat it up.

So what have you found that you really like? I want extremely uniform grit (hate that one deep scratch), as fast as possible, it should last long enough to sand a modest size piece with a few square inches of paper, and it should be fast (yes, I said that twice). Within limits, I don't much care how much it costs if it gets the sanding done sooner rather than later with a great result.

I only need anything below 120 grit on bad days, but want to go up to at least 800. (Abralon seems good for the very high grits.)

I hear ya. I did the same thing. It's going to take forever to go through all that Klingspor scrap. I use it when I can, but have to use some cloth-backed paper too. I've started being less conservative with the Kling of late. When the cutting is reduced even a little, I throw it away.

[Don Stephan]

The Norton best brand of sheet paper has worked well for me. Recently I think the brand name changed so I'm not sure what it is called now. I buy it at the local Woodcraft store in 20 sheet packs.

[Reed Gray]

I used to buy the 'jobber's' packs of the Norton 3X as they used to call it. I think those were the 20 sheet packs. Not sure what they call it now. I had to go to a painter's store to find it last time. I would like to see the blue abrasive that Vince sells as sheet or strip stock as I prefer it for abrasive discs to anything else I have seen. I would also like to see it in 3 inch wide strips for my drum sander. The red and white aluminum oxide abrasives just don't hold up as well or cut as well.

robo hippy

[Dick Mahany]

I have used the gold disks from Vinces for 2 and 3" disk sanding and like them. More recently I was introduced to Mirka 4.5 x 5" Soft Flex foam padded sandpaper. It was used to de-nib cabinet doors and panels that were sprayed with waterborne finishes. It worked so well that I tried it for hand sanding on the lathe. It worked equally well. The sheets come on a large perforated roll and I plan to get some coarser grades now than the 400 that I started with. It is meant for hand or block sanding and doesn't have hook and loop or PSA capabilities.

IMG_6369.jpg

[Kevin Jenness]

I like the Klingspor Gold cloth backed abrasive- very flexible backing. Kind of pricy, you have to use it as if someone else is paying for it. I too got a Klingspor bargain box, and it's luck of the draw. Some of the rolls are flexible enough to be useful, and the rest is cheap enough to throw away. I have several boxes of Abranet disks from 320# on up that I use for lathe work as well.

[John K Jordan]

Roger, I most of my sanding is by hand, all that is usually needed after using NRS and hand scrapers. I have tried a lot of things and this is what works for me:

For coarser grits, Klingspor Gold, in 1" and 2" rolls, from 400 grit to 60 grit. I mostly use 220-400.
These (and almost everything from Klingspor) is discounted 10% if your club signs up with Klingspor and sends them a list containing your name and email address.

I mounted the Klingspor Gold rolls on a dispenser I made and mounted within reach on the wall behind the lathe:

lathe_PM_cu2_IMG_5751.jpg

lathe_wall_papertowel_IMG_5.jpg

I mount them on the dispenser with the finer, most used grits closer to me on the left. I added a slice of paper towel roll, handy to tear off small pieces.
I see no need to ever use 80 grit on wood so I reserve it for cleaning brake drums and such.

I often use the Klingspor Gold strips backed up with a soft rubber eraser to better conform to the curves of the piece. I call this my Soft Sanding Block.

sanding_soft_block.jpg

I also glue the strips onto 1" and 2" wide pieces of thin plywood to make sanding sticks, so useful for some things.

sanding_blocks.jpg

For finer grits I use Indasa Rhinowet Redline sheets, from 600 to finer. I mostly use 600 and 800. (Edit: I got confused and earlier wrote "400" and "400 and 600")
https://www.indasa-abrasives.com/glo...nowet-red-line
https://www.supergrit.com/view.php?p...eRedFlexSheets
I use Indasa grits up to 1500 for special applications such as sanding turnings from acrylic.

This is wet and dry paper buy unlike some the black stuff the backing and bonding are very flexible and can be bent over and creased without any particles breaking loose. I cut the sheets up into about 1"x3" pieces and store them in little bins just under the rolls of Klingspor Gold. I also use them with the soft sanding blocks.

These two are the only sandpaper I use by hand.

JKJ

I need better sandpaper for hand sanding on the lathe. I use the blue or green disks for Vince's for power sanding and they work quite well for me. They are also good when hand held, bit it doesn't seem to make sense to pay for small disks with velcro backing when I only need a plain paper.

A couple years ago I bought the bargain box from Klingspor and have been working my way through it, hating every minute. The stuff I got is on a way too heavy backing, won't hold a curve (cracks to a sharp angle when you fold it over), and doesn't last for beans. Well, it was real cheap.

I use Abranet disks on my ROS mostly, for turnings I've found it to be overly flexible and slow. It really doesn't seem to like it if you push too hard and heat it up.

So what have you found that you really like? I want extremely uniform grit (hate that one deep scratch), as fast as possible, it should last long enough to sand a modest size piece with a few square inches of paper, and it should be fast (yes, I said that twice). Within limits, I don't much care how much it costs if it gets the sanding done sooner rather than later with a great result.

I only need anything below 120 grit on bad days, but want to go up to at least 800. (Abralon seems good for the very high grits.)

[andy bessette]

The sandpaper I use most is adhesive-backed 8" discs in 80-grit. 3M gold has been best. These discs are wrapped around rectangular blocks of scrap 3/4" plywood and are used for shaping/smoothing wood and knocking down epoxy glue squeeze-out.

[John Keeton]

For round discs I use the blue from Vince, but for sheet paper that I tear into smaller squares (12 squares from a 9x11 sheet) I have purchased from these folks for better than a decade - https://www.onlineindustrialsupply.c...ve-sheets.html

Great uniformity of grit and a lot of usage from the paper - best value I have found. I buy the platinum through 320 and the silicon carbide for higher grits.

[Thomas Canfield]

I used the Norton 3X that has been replaced by Norton Pro in 20 sheet pack. Sheets are torn into 6 pieces and those tri-folded for use. The tri-fold give body but some foam backing can also be used to fit curves like interior and exterior of bowls, etc.

[John Keeton]

Thomas, the Norton paper is good paper, but costs over twice as much as the paper I have been using for years. I have used Norton and in my opinion it isn’t worth the difference for my needs. But, that is just my opinion and the Norton may work better for you.

[David Walser]

Roger — This thread reminds me of the truism: If you ask 10 turners a question, you’ll get 12 opinions.

In this case, I think one of the reasons for the differing advice is which abrasive is ‘best’ depends a lot on what is being turned. For example, my favorite abrasive for hand sanding is abranet or one of its clones. Yet, I seldom use it at the lathe. For smaller items, such as pens or boxes, I like the convenience of tearing off a 1” or 2” strip from a 20’x1” roll of “turner’s sandpaper “. As convenient as these rolls are, the J-weight cloth backing make them inappropriate for fine details. For such details, I cut an appropriately sized piece from a sheet of Norton’s paper backed abrasive. For larger projects, such as bowls, I use abranet. Even then, I’ll use Norton’s for fine details. It’s not unusual for me to use three different types of abrasive on a single project.

The only constant is I wet sand whenever I can.

[roger wiegand]

I pretty much figured I was going to get a wide range of responses. There does seem to be a pretty broad consensus that the blue disks from Vince are really good, also my experience. Of course I was hoping that there would be a similar situation for sheets or strips.

Several good things here to try. It's hard to try when the stuff comes packaged in large expensive units-- I recently pitched a whole pile of less expensive 6" mesh abrasive disks I'd bought because they were essentially useless and irritating. I still have the remains many 100 sheet boxes of garnet paper from 30 years ago that I should pitch, the abrasive is just falling off at this point.

Something that comes in 2" strips where you can tear off what you need is really appealing from an organization point of view. The area around my lathe is littered with pieces of "still good" sandpaper-- but unmarked as to grit, so I wast a lot of time trying to figure out which is finer.

Maybe the answer is to get Vince to package his blue paper in 2" rolls?