Thread: The silliest little sandpaper folding tip

Me too.

Originally Posted by Stewey

Just don't fold the sandpaper sheets into quarters. If you do, two gritty faces will be against each other, and will wear the 'edge' off each other before you get to use them! The 'thirds' idea is perfect.

For smaller abrasive surfaces, quarters works very well. Just remember to cut along one 1/2 fold, in that way no grit faces are touching when you fold it up. Try it, another advantage is that you have 4 thicknesses of paper for a robust pad.
Cheers
Peter

A square hollow chisel, when new ,is the same machined thickness all the way down it's usable length, from the cutting leading edge, back.
So when you plunge it in, specially the first plunge, it can be a problem getting the chisel out, without pulling your wood out of the clamp that's holding it up against the fence of the Mortiser. It can do this all along the mortise being cut some times . The friction and pressure on the chisel sides is so great I suppose .

This is why I used to use the folded sand paper, to hold the wood in place when having these troubles sometimes.
I used to tell some of the younger guys to do the same if they found the wood behaving this way, and, not all of the guys would do what I said of course .
One young fella , instead of using the folded sand paper just kept cranking up the pressure on my chisel mortiser table clamp until he smashed it . GREAT !!! A cast iron table in two pieces , wonderful . Lucky for me I like to weld .

Then one day a guy , forget who ? or did I read it ?? says , grind the chisel sides back just a touch , from about 5mm behind the cutting edge back up the length of the chisel on four sides . Not deep or hard , it's best done on a linisher with sand paper . The cutting edge does its job and the rest is slightly thinner behind that . You cant really see the difference , but it makes a big difference to the way it pulls back out after a plunge. No more need for clamping with sandpaper on the mortiser after that .

Rob

Thanks!
Actually a few of our square chisels are already like that - about 1mm narrower on all 4 sides from about 3/4" (18mm) behind the cutting edge. And some even have about a 1/16" arris (about 1.4mm) on the 4 corners also, in that part.

If you like welding, you'd like our chisel mortiser-the whole table & guides were smashed to smithereens when the bloke shifting it, with a forklift, didn't tie it, and stopped suddenly.
The actual table & moving fence are OK, but the rest is on about 18 pieces, and a few are missing.
That was how we came to buy it - as damaged goods already like that. Good machine though.

Just out of interest Stewey , what make is the machine ?
A lot of cast iron machines get broken because of the way they are carted around by people who don't take care .

Rob

It's a lovely old biggish Robinson chain & chisel mortiser.
I'd like to get another chain or two for it - just have a 9/16" wide one, I think.

if you feeling a bit tightarsey, you can make up a batch of one off files using old sandpaper.

The cloth backed grits(hermes or coloured stuff)great in long lengths for fast even rounding of ends by hand….after jobs like that I end up with grit with worn centres but fresh often untouched grit on the edges. Rip the edges off and find some thin wood offcuts around the saw and glue them on. Can end up with some really effective files that are better than your regular ones because the grits so fresh. Files with safe edges too. Good for corner filing jobs etc. And when they clog….so what. chuck it.

Thats something I do when I'm at that point mentally where I desperately need to do something else...else I go nuts…….. make shittt loads of wooden files (that I end up loosing in some corner somewhere ) and earplugs out of rags for the draw . Can't get more tightarsey than that I'm told. Roll up thin strips of cloth and tape then up.

Originally Posted by issatree

Hi to All & elanjacobs,
I have been using Hermes 406 J Flex since before you were born.
Could you inform us all, why you think it is the worst paper you have ever used.

I use to sell this Hermes back in the 1990's, I got a bit long in the tooth & Jim Carroll came along.

I have tried lots of different makes, but I still come back to my Hermes.

There was a period where I was making dining tables with large pedestal legs that needed a lot of hand sanding quite regularly and I became the test bed for any new abrasives. I've been through samples of plain paper and velcro discs from Hermes, Deerfos, SIA and Norton (possibly a couple of others that I've forgotten) as well as the Indasa Redline, Astra (used to use their discs) and Wurth (currently use their discs) that we normally use and the Hermes stuff consistently went dull MUCH faster than anything else.
Tried the Hermes belt sander and linisher belts and found them to be poor performers as well.

Originally Posted by issatree

Hi to All & elanjacobs,
I have been using Hermes 406 J Flex since before you were born.
Could you inform us all, why you think it is the worst paper you have ever used.

I use to sell this Hermes back in the 1990's, I got a bit long in the tooth & Jim Carroll came along.

I have tried lots of different makes, but I still come back to my Hermes.

Wow! Looks like we might just have a "which sandpaper is best skirmish" developing here,and that would be interesting.
For the record, I am on the Hermes bandwagon. It's great for turning, furniture work,metal work, and the occasional home dentistry job as it's pretty waterproof. As I buy the stuff by the roll, the only complaint is that it is not cheap.
As for the fold it into three method. Would have thought that was one of the most fundamentally known facts, in the same league as "don't hit your thumb with the hammer"

Originally Posted by artful bodger

As for the fold it into three method. Would have thought that was one of the most fundamentally known facts, in the same league as "don't hit your thumb with the hammer"

A fact it may be, but known to me it was not when I was shown.

And I STILL do the other one
Hehe

Hi to elanjacobs, As far as I'm concerned, there are many Hermes Papers. So when you say there not worth it, which ones are you referring too.

Originally Posted by issatree

Hi to elanjacobs, As far as I'm concerned, there are many Hermes Papers. So when you say there not worth it, which ones are you referring too.

The ones I've used are:

RB 406 J-Flex roll 180 & 240 grit
VC 151-Longlife multihole discs 80-240 grit (after using them I distinctly remember commenting something to the effect of "If these are the long life ones, I'd hate to think how bad the regular ones are")
No idea which belts, they were cloth backed and pretty sure they were a red/burgundy colour. 80-120 grit

This was a few years ago, so there might have been others as well that I can't remember.

I'm sure there are many people who think that Hermes stuff is great (someone's obviously keeping them in business), but my experience is that pretty much anything else is better.

Hi all,
Fair enough, elanjacobs, but I don't know where to go for what you call " The Better Papers ", or actually which ones.
Wood like to give them a try though.

When my lot, as I think have passed their use by date, I take them to Our Mens Shed, & they are still working.
The Turners seem to think they are OK, ranging from 80 100 120 150 180 240 320 400. I even take the Older RW Redline as well.
I suppose, it's the old horses for courses thingo.

We use the Indasa Rhinodry Redline sheets for all our hand sanding.
Currently we get orbital discs from Wurth. Used to use Astra discs which were really good, not sure why we stopped, but the Wurth discs are just as good.
We get belts from either Abrasiflex or Abrasive Industrial (can't remember which). Linisher and belt sander belts were Norton Metallite, but we recently swapped to the blue Deerfos (I think they're zirconia). Both are excellent, not sure if the Deerfos is worth the extra money but I don't pay the bills.
Wide-belt sander belts are paper-backed SIAWood.

Also tried some Festool Rubin 2 discs recently. Not impressed.

I should also add that we almost never go past 180 grit (occasionally we go to 240), so all my ramblings are based on 60-240 grit.