sandpaper

[nicguthrie]

Just my vote for Abranet. It's a little expensive comparatively, for very small sheets, but it seriously lasts ages. It's almost totally immune to caking or developing little corns, as it's an open mesh, so dust just falls straight through, and any clogging that you *do* manage, is removed easily with a wipe over the nozzle of your dust extractor.

I had heard good things about it for years, and decided to sink some cash into a "starter set" of 10 of each grit from Axminster... I think now that I've used it, that I ordered *WAY* too much, what I have will last me years at the rate it's wearing.

Procell: it's not my idea, I got it from a book, or web tutorial or something (possibly Eddie Castellain) to glue a small strip of the abranet over the end of a sturdy offcut stick, with paper towel or something glued under it as a cushion. Makes a decent and very cheap sanding device for the bottom of bowls, and gives enough control and firm enough grip to not have any accidents!

Nic.

 

[procell]

Good Idea Nic. Thanks

Another plus with Abranet is if you do get a clogging it is easy to remove by pulling the sheet of Abranet over the edge of a square sectioned tool like a skew (velcro face towards the tool). The build up just racks and falls off leaving the net clean as new.

 

[CHJ]

......Can anyone suggest a way to sand the centre of bowls without the sandpaper tending to whip out of position?

 

[nicguthrie]

Chas, is that a battery powered driver with a home made power supply interface? What do you power it with? It looks very clever!

Love the use of wood for the base too.

Nic.

 

[CHJ]

I use a 230v/6-9-12-24 DC power pack I made up about 40 yrs. ago. Basically an old fashioned Battery Charger with some decent diodes in it.

I like the small drill/driver because of its slow speed.

 

[procell]

Nice Idea Chas. If I had the first idea of how to do electrics I would do something like that.
The arbor you use. is it dense foam like they use in photography cases to hold the lenses etc?

 

[CHJ]

......The arbor you use. is it dense foam like they use in photography cases to hold the lenses etc?

The one on the drill is a Simon Hope version, it so happens it has a Grip-a-Disc pad on it as well.

So it's a real amalgam, standard simon hope grip disk + soft pad + a grip-a-disk pad.
(just because I'm too lazy to change out or I've slapped on whichever seemed the best at the time.)


I use the Grip-A-Disc arbour, because of rigidity when sanding near an edge and not wanting to risk round-over, the softer variations of the hope when wanting to blend a curve or need the extra reach.
It's just one of those things like, which make of abrasive, I tend to pick up the brand that just seems right at the time.