Cheap and good sandpaper. Who knew?

[RCRVRP]

I have a live edge cherry slab that will become a bench shortly. Rough sawn and needed quite a bit of stock removed. Too much twist in it and too wide to go through the planer.
Decided to sand it smooth and since I was short of sandpaper I went to Amazon and found a 100 pack of cheap assorted 5" discs hoping to get lucky and get the job done. $16.00
What a surprise! I used 2 60 grit and 2 120's and the job is finished.
Never before have I bought cheap paper and been happy with it.
I have enough left to supply my needs for a few years!


https://www.amazon.com/Keeimp-Assort...0854831&sr=8-2

[RichW]

Thanks I'll check them out. Always can use good cheap sanding disks.

[ron ll]

It might not be as cheap as you think. Check all the glowing reviews on 3M Cubitron.

https://youtu.be/Q2VgobeZce0

[RCRVRP]

It might not be as cheap as you think. Check all the glowing reviews on 3M Cubitron.

https://youtu.be/Q2VgobeZce0

Sounds very good.
Since they are 5 times the price of those I bought if they would last 5 times as long 1 would be all I'd need for the rest of my life.

[ChristoM]

Sounds like a fake review and product placement. Pretty sure this poster is about to get cut.

[wizbang 13]

Sanded rough cherry with 60 grit…..
yea that’s bull oh knee

[RCRVRP]

Sanded rough cherry with 60 grit…..
yea that’s bull oh knee

No, it was 60 grit to start, 320 to finish before stain and finish.

Why would you say otherwise?

[RCRVRP]

Sounds like a fake review and product placement. Pretty sure this poster is about to get cut.

No it was not. Would you like a picture of the project?

[Garret]

No it was not. Would you like a picture of the project?

Might not be a bad idea. There's been a spate of "advertising" posts lately that makes many suspicious of product recommendations - especially from people who only have a few posts. Please don't take offense!

Starting @ 60 grit on rough cut cherry made sense to me BTW...

[wizbang 13]

60 grit in my world is not coarse
cheap sandpaper in my world is a waste of time and money
Cherry is hard wood , rough saw marks … that’s a lotta sanding even fer me.
my apologies if I am wrong mmmmm but….

[Hugh MacD]

No it was not. Would you like a picture of the project?

Sure! I'd love to see your bench!

[sp_clark]

Some folks' idea of what's smooth may not exactly equal what some other folks standards for smoothness are....

Sure! I'd love to see your bench!

Me too!

[Gerarddm]

Wait. 60 grit took down enough wood? 2 discs? Hmmm...

a) I would have used 36 grit on a grinder to hog down the wood.
b) Or, set up a router sled like so many YouTube vids show to flatten it.

[RCRVRP]

Here it is, live edge black cherry.. It will be mounted to the wall as a floating bench with no attaching parts visible.
It is American black cherry, hardness about 90 on the Janka scale. Thats harder than white pine, softer than red oak. It is very nice to work with. I have used a lot of this wood for trim on various boats, flooring in my home, and for built in cabinets in my bedroom in the current house. .
The new house , done in 4 months I hope, will have kitchen and bath cabinets, stair treads and rails and loft railings all from black cherry, mostly done for me at an Amish cabinet shop.
It took me less than a half hour with a 5 inch orbital sander to get this smooth as a babies bottom on top and smooth enough on the bottom to use that as a stain test area. I ended up going to 320 grit at the end on top. It now has 4 coats of poly smoothed with 2000 grit between coats. And no I'm not here trying to sell sandpaper. It was an honest post just telling folks here about a product that surprised me with its good value.
bench.jpgfloor.JPGcabinets.JPG

In return for what I thought was useful information I've been accused of posting a fake review and product placement, told what I posted is baloney, told 60 grit is not coarse, told I was doing it wrong and that cheap sand paper is a waste of money.

Sorry I bothered.

[wizbang 13]

RCRCRP
I sincerely apologize.
please understand that we, the forum, have been bombarded with bots recently.
So, what brand is this amazing abrasive paper?
Bruce

[RCRVRP]

RCRCRP
I sincerely apologize.
please understand that we, the forum, have been bombarded with bots recently.
So, what brand is this amazing abrasive paper?
Bruce

A link is in the first post.

[sp_clark]

Sorry I bothered.

I'm not, and thanks for the pics of your projects. You obviously have an affection for real wood stuff.

Looking at the Amazon-linked product you fell onto, it reminds me of the SIA brand abrasives I encountered some half-century ago while making repro decoys & collectable wildlife art. That stuff would outlast anything else the artist I was working for could find here but we were working with sugar pine & basswood, nothing like black cherry.

You do anything involving boats with your skills?

[RCRVRP]

I'm not, and thanks for the pics of your projects. You obviously have an affection for real wood stuff.

You do anything involving boats with your skills?

Yes, built a few, fixed a few.

Ocooch, nice country.

[sp_clark]

Ocooch, nice country.

'Tis that. I'm a newbie to it this last decade, expat from state just south (and a fair bit east as well). Nice folks too, for the most part.

[timber_cruiser]

RCRVRP,

Nice work with the Black Cherry wood. I am originally from Wisconsin, and I always enjoyed working with local cherry anytime I could acquire it.

I also buy my sanding discs in bulk from Amazon. I use 100 and 220 mainly, I change the pads frequently. In the old days when I bought my sanding discs from the hardware store - much more expensive - I would use each pad until it was just paper.

Any pics of your boats(s)?

[RCRVRP]

Hard to get a picture where these three are hanging. 2 solo, one tandem stripper. Cedar, ash and cherry seats and trim, one hull is otobo wood from Colombia. Pinkish, even grain, relatively light, easy to work, easy to find clear boards. How they came to me from Colombia to me in Wisconsin is a story too long to tell here. Lets just say the "importer" learned his lesson and is no longer in the tropical hardwoods business. Last I heard he was living in a gated community.
The canoes all need a good clean and varnish, they have made a lot of trips since I built them. The last one I used a 2 part automotive clear coat instead of varnish. Faster, easier, wears better, it just need a bath and some trim touch up.
The other canoes and the sailboats are in the warehouse till spring. One was given to me with the FG cloth mostly peeled off, gunwales and seats gone, just a bundle of sticks loosely resembling a canoe. But it was FREE!
Spent most of a winter redoing every thing, building seats and thwarts and gunwales, new cloth and epoxy in and out and it came out looking pretty.
Put in the water and it is the MOST tender, tippy, unfriendly canoe I've ever paddled. Fast as can be, tracks straight as an arrow. If you can keep it upright.
But then again it was "free".

No more boat building or paddling or sailing until the house is finished.

[Garret]

Beautiful canoes!

Please don't let a few people jumping to conclusions spoil the forum for you. Anyone who does work like what you've shown is a welcome addition to the forum.

And - since the 100 discs you linked to cost about what 20 crap ones from the big box cost, I just ordered some.

[Hugh MacD]

You're working on that!?! My workbench gets pounded on and screws run into it...that's far too pretty for working on like I do

[RCRVRP]

I do like to have a nice looking shop. Clean, uncluttered and with nicely varnished benches. Not a speck of dust anywhere when I leave at the end of the day.

I’d post some pictures but I seem to have run out of film.

[sp_clark]

... film.

They still make that stuff?

Coincidentally I just read this earlier this morning.

Maybe the pair of Contax Arias in my basement might be worth something again after all ....

You're working on that!?! My workbench gets pounded on and screws run into it...that's far too pretty for working on like I do

I don't have work benches as such.

Just a lot of horizontal surfaces I look at as "works-in-progress" hold-alls.

And there never seems to be enough of 'em either, despite my accumulation of sawhorses & plywood.

[Paul Pless]

Wait. 60 grit took down enough wood? 2 discs? Hmmm...

a) I would have used 36 grit on a grinder to hog down the wood.
b) Or, set up a router sled like so many YouTube vids show to flatten it.

stanley bailey #4

[RCRVRP]

stanley bailey #4

Less than $1 worth of sand paper and fewer than 30 minutes with a sander from rough to finish ready seemed like a better choice at the time. There were knots, swirled grain, and edge bark among other things to deal with.
Please explain how you would have done it better, faster and or easier with a hand plane. Perhaps I can learn something for the next project

[Paul Pless]

sorry, didn't intend to come off abrasively
your finished work looks fine from here
i would have thicknessed it differently
cherry hand planes very easily

[David Satter]

RCRVRP, your work looks great. Some people on these sites just criticize. I just pass over them or ignore them. Grandma always said if you can't say something nice say nothing at all. And Paul, Yes I love my hand planes also. Took me a lot of practice to learn how to work my old one's left from my dad.

[George Jung]

sorry, didn't intend to come off abrasively
your finished work looks fine from here
i would have thicknessed it differently
cherry hand planes very easily

Hehehe..... yer cookin' with oil, Pless!

The Committee appreciates the effort.

[Garret]

In case anyone's interested, I ordered some of the disks. I've only sanded with one so far, but it seems to have stood up very well. More info when I do more sanding.

[Bob Cleek]

"It now has 4 coats of poly smoothed with 2000 grit between coats." Really? 2000?

[RCRVRP]

"It now has 4 coats of poly smoothed with 2000 grit between coats." Really? 2000?

Yes, 2000. Really.