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Just new to the site think it is going to be great to share info. I have had a couple jobs lately that I have been able to see the last direction pass of the sander on a 420 grit sand followed by Scoth Brite pad. It has been on medium brown colors. I was wondering if we are not covering the top with the scotch brite pad enough or should we use marroon pad first? Any recomendations would be helpful.
Welcome to the site, Rueben.
Some of our guys will do that on some colors. First bit of advice is to switch to micron paper if you can, seems less trouble with the “corn rows” than the “grit” pads we get from klingspor for sanding cabinets. Better graded, I think.
Second thing, try using a little water and wet polishing the last sanding, just spray the top like you do for the scotchbrite and keep it moist. That is our usuall fix when we see the lines you talk about.
There are some very experienced people on this site and I’ll bet you get some good answers.
Reuben wrote
I have been able to see the last direction pass of the sander on a 420 grit sand followed by Scoth Brite pad.Welcome Reuben,
Can you explain what you mean by the above. I am kinda confused about what type of lines you are referring to. Are these directional lines like belt sander marks or are they swirl marks?
Thanks for participating in the forum.
Andy
Reuban, a little confused here as well. 420 grit? 22 years selling abrasives and I’ve never heard of that. 400 grit, yes. Try 30 Micron (400g) instead of conventional grade abrasives and yes, a little wet and that should do it. Keep in mind that 400 or any grit sandpaper vs micron is a totally differant animal. While the box demotes a certain grit, depending on the brand there could be a + or – factor. If you look at a piece of Micron under a microscope, the engineered abrasive is dead flat across the entire piece. On conventional grade abrasive, there are peeks and valleys so to speak. What may be say 400 grit in 1 spot is not in another(+ or -)Even 2 pieces out of the same box may leave a differant finish or swirl/scratch pattern.. That is why Micron in the world of Solid Surface is consisent in scratch pattern from 1 piece to another and the finish will always be consistent.
Sorry about the grit guys sometimes after a few to many hours awake the fingers don’t type so well. yes it is 400 grit that I use and Dave the sanding lines are the swirl marks left behind showing up in rows the last direction sanded.
I currently use a Festool 150/5 EQ sander with the festool label Titan 2 sandpapers. So my next question would be what brand of micron paper should I look at using?
Reuban, while there are “generic microns” on the market, 3M Micron is hands down the best. If you’d like, E-Mail me at: simplyservice@aol.com and I’ll mail you several pieces of Micron no charge to try.
Dave
Rueben, Dave is right. 3m all the way. We got samples of all kinds and nothing worked better for us on high gloss. We keep “grit” type paper around for sanding wood and rough sanding edges of buildups or seams, but 3m 80, 60, and 30 micron will do a great job. In our shop, most new guys seem to get over leaving the swirls but some never do. I wonder if it is partly in how they push down on the sander and if they don’t clean between grits properly, including the sander.
Al, “pushing down on the sander”, in other words, using elbow grease has been a problem in many shops I’ve been in. The new guys think if they push down harder that they’ll get the job finished quicker by taking more off when in fact, they’re actually creating more work. Let a good quality sander and abrasive do the work, not the muscles in your arm.
Dave
Rueben,
Like Al mentioned, make sure to clean the top between each step as some grit from the prior step will be on the top. Also be sure to clean the sander as well, some other the prior grit will be left on it as well, and of course the darker the color the more scratches show up. Some of the marks left behind could also be from the sanding pattern itself. If you move your sander in a circular motion be sure to move it in a clockwise motion. Counter clockwise leaves pigtails.
Sometimes it is not the sandpaper that leaves poor results but poor sanding technique. I think Dani could polish a top with silica sand and an old rag.
John
John,
Thanks for the suggestion , but I will stay with my micron film. Definitely after 20 years of using micron film it has more than proven it’s self and I give it the Dani seal of approval.
Sanding only with micron film,
Dani
Dave, where they have to learn to push is on edges, the sander will just bounce around if you don’t. I teach them to listen to the sound of the sander to get the best idea of how much to push down. Even on tops, if you just let it “float” it will spin really fast but you can tell it isn’t cutting much. Sometimes a newbie will try to use a countour pad instead of the regular pad and will leave some marks.
I need to try some of Dani’s pads one of these days. That old saying about working so hard in our business that there is no time to work on our business.
Al, here’s a classic for you as it relates to newbies. I had this customer who was averaging 8-10 3M Hookit pads a week…every week for a month. They’d call them in, we’d ship them. Something was wrong with this picture. While there were 25 fabricators in the shop, there was no way they should be going through that amount of pads. So I called them. It turns out that they were so busy, could not hire fast enough that they were going through a local temp service AND…the guys were firing up the air sanders and proceeding to sand those tops… WITHOUT any abrasive on the pad !! LOL A sure fire way to kill a pad in a heartbeat.
That’s a darn funny question John ! LOL I’ll have to give that a little thought. One things for sure…it creates no dust! You should have seen the look on the owner of the companies face when I told him what the problem was…Heads rolled.
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