Following a suggestion by Tom (tms) I recently tried Abranet for the first time — wow! Have some questions for those who have used it extensively.
One is, where do you buy yours? More importantly, though, how extensively do you use it?? I’m working with poplar today, destined to be painted. Leaves a fine surface for that. Do you use it on all woods, hard and soft? Under only certain finishes, or is it good for all/most??
Last question: Do you use the backing pad (the big pad, not the thin thing) — which costs about $20, or did you skip that?
TIA!
forestgirl — you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can’t take the forest out of the girl 😉
Replies
I use it extensively on everything except metal, which is the only time that paper-backed sandpaper performs better IMO. I buy mine through Industrial Finishes & Systems who also sell me all of my DuPont automotive paint materials. I also stock Abralon which is also a mesh abrasive by Mirka but with a foam backing on it. Abralon is designed for wetsanding, pre-buffing type tasks. Both are fabulous products without any clear peers.
I don't use the thick backing pad with Abranet. It's supposed to assist conforming to a curved surface. But it doesn't work very well for that IMO. I do use it as a hand-sanding pad, though. Be careful handsanding with Abranet, though. Because of the weave of the mesh, you have to be careful not to use it inline with the weave because it will sand slight grooves into your surface. Anything from a right angle to just a slight angle avoids this issue.
The thin pad is well worth using! It will extend the life of the sanding pad which as you know, any hook & loop pad is famous for wearing out. That thin pad really does work!
Edited 5/19/2007 4:29 pm by Kevin
"I don't use the thick backing pad with Abranet. It's supposed to assist conforming to a curved surface." I bought my sample pack at the woodworking show in Seattle. The sales-guy said something about the thick pad protecting the Abranet disc against tearing or coming off when it hits a sharp edge. I pressed him about it, never did totally understand it, but he acquiesced saying that just the thin pad-protector, which comes in the sample pack, would suffice for a try-out. I did get a short tear in the edge of the Abranet disc when I first started sanding with the ROS. I noticed that the Abranet disc is somewhat larger than my sanding pad, so I trimmed it a bit around the edge. Didn't seem to have any problems after that, but I was very careful when near the edges of the boards.
"Be careful handsanding with Abranet, though. Because of the weave of the mesh, you have to be careful not to use it inline with the weave because it will sand slight grooves into your surface." I wondered about that. The very first use I put the Abranet to was hand-sanding out some bandsaw marks on a convex curve, 1.75" radius, so a bit too tight to use the sander on. I went perpedicular to the weave just by instinct.
I can't believe how great the Abranet works. The mesh allows virtually all the sanding dust to go up the vacuum. And it wears forever, it seems. If I did my math right, I sanded 32 square feet today, going straight from the planer to 180 grit, using only 1 disc! Some of the boards had quite a bit of tiny tear-out, so it wasn't an easy task for the abrasive. If I had had another 180 in the sample pack, I probably would have traded out about 80% of the way through, but I didn't, since it for painting and I wasn't obsessed with getting the surface super-perfect.
Questions: Do you use Abranet for your final sanding before a "regular" finish (varnish, shellac, whatever), or do you switch over to garnet or another sandpaper? What grit do you usually stop at?forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Abranet definitely, without a doubt, lasts much longer on a per-disc basis. That was one of it's strongest selling points when I first started using it a couple years ago. Granted, Abranet costs quite a bit more on a per-disc basis too. But, while material costs definitely do matter, the real money is made or lost in labor hours rather than material costs. And there Abranet offers a distinct advantage over every other abrasive I've ever used.
I would also add that, in my experience, one of the biggest mistakes people make with prep sanding operations is that they try to make a given piece of abrasive last too long. Time is money and my experience has consistently been that you're money ahead to toss a piece of abrasive too soon than too late. This is particularly true when working with wipe stains because you will run into definite color consistency problems by trying to get too much usage out of a worn abrasive because it will start polishing the wood rather than abrading it, and that causes the stain to not be absorbed correctly... resulting in color consistency problems. And here too Abranet offers a distinct advantage because it's wear patterns are so much slower than paper-backed abrasives that the transition (on the wood) from a worn abrasive to a fresh one is much more consistent/uniform than with paper-backed abrasives.
As far as I can tell, Abranet will sand roughly three times the surface area that a paper-backed abrasive of the same grit will sand before needing to be replaced. That's what Mirka claims and my experience has been that it's an accurate claim.
The one downside to Abranet is sanding in corners as you've discovered. There, paper-backed abrasives offer less of a downside because the edge of the Abranet is like a little saw blade. But it can be worked around as long as you are aware of the issue and it's still a vastly superior abrasive over-all, IMHO.
Do you use Abranet for your final sanding before a "regular" finish (varnish, shellac, whatever), or do you switch over to garnet or another sandpaper?
I use Abranet for all sanding, except for prep sanding metal as I mentioned before.
What grit do you usually stop at?
That very much depends on what I'm sanding and why I'm sanding it. Prep sanding (pre-finish) I will usually use either 240 or 320, depending on the type of wood as well as whether it's to be stained, painted or just clear-coated. With stain I typically stop at 240, although I sometimes stop at 320 depending on several different factors. Painting is the same, and clear-coating I prefer to stop at 320 because the finish builds faster on the smoother surface.
For scuff sanding between finish coats I use either 320 or 400, again... depending on several factors such as the finish material (whether it will melt/bite into the previous coat or not) and type material being finished (lots of shaped mouldings are safer sanded with 400 because it's less likely to burn through and require a touch-up).
I stock 180 and 600 grits, but rarily use either. 240, 320 and 400 are my work horses. I used to use mostly 240 and 320. But lately I find myself using mostly 240 and 400, The 400 mesh is much more flexible than the 320 mesh and thus conforms to a moulding much better, so that's primarily why I've started using it more than the 320.
Industrial Finishes doesn't sell online. The Eugene facility is the corporate HQ. It's really two different companies. The parent company (in Eugene and several other states) specializes in abrasives only. The subsidiary company sells automotive paints, spray equipment and supplies in several western states, including in Washington. I had thought they had a store in the Seattle area, but apparently Vancouver is as far North as they go. So you'll have to find another source. If you have a Sherwin Williams store nearby you might try them. I know that their commercial coatings division sells Abranet, although I don't know if you can get it through their regular stores or not.
Edited 5/20/2007 2:47 pm by Kevin
Edited 5/20/2007 2:49 pm by Kevin
"Industrial Finishes & Systems" .... in Eugene?? Doesn't look like the sell on-line.forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
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