Change your sandpaper. Again.
One of the things I’ve started to learn about woodworking is not to skimp on disposables. My previous post on sawblades was the first thought in this vein, and it won’t be the last.
So for a long time I thought I hated sanding. Then I discovered the beautiful light of infinite radience, and discovered that sanding’s not so bad. But it still takes a while. Or so I thought.
I was changing my sandpaper like many people do–when I could see it had deteriorated (e.g. tear marks on the paper). This would happen after about an hour of sanding. I’d put on the new paper, and for a few minutes, accidentally sand giant gouges into everything I’d touch. Then everything would go back to normal.
Turns out that what I thought was the “normal” part of sanding was actually me rubbing dead limp sandless paper repeatedly over wood. Any sanding effect that appeared to result was probably the effect of microscopic aluminum oxide particles free-floating in the atmosphere. Here’s the skinny: depending on the quality of your sandpaper, you have five to ten minutes of serious sanding each time you change the pad. After that time, you may as well switch over to Charmin, because you’re not sanding squat. Those gouges I mentioned? That’s because I was using waaay too strong a grit, since I effectively wasted all cutting power of the sandpaper in the first useful five minutes.
When you try doing it right–changing sandpaper every five to ten minutes–your sanding tasks will take roughly one four hundredth as long as they did before. As a bonus, you’ll be using higher grit sandpaper than you were before (since it’s cutting so much faster) so your finishes will be better.
So the moral of the story is buy a crateful of sandpaper, change it constantly, and learn to love sanding again. You’ll thank me for it.
(Although I previously recommended hook-and-loop sanders & sandpaper, I’m beginning to reconsider, since PSA (sticky) sandpaper is so crazy cheap. Cheap sandpaper means I change it more often, which is good, so I may try an H&L converter & report back on the results)
(You might want to subscribe or follow me on Twitter so you don’t miss new articles)
