I’ve seen products which are described as non-woven abrasives, in sheet or pad form which are hyped for everything from removing rust from metal to final sanding of wood finishes. Does anyone have experience using this material instead of sandpaper for anything from preparing wood to be finished to final rubbing-out of a finished piece? Where does it perform better, and where does it perform worse? What are its pros and cons?
The materials I’m speaking of are 3M’s “Scotch-brite”, Norton’s “Bear-Tex”, or other similar products.
Thank you all,
Musician42
Replies
Muse,
Scotch--brite wheels are the best thing since white bread.
I have been using a Scotch--brite wheel on my bench grinder for three years and although the wheel started out as a one inch thick by six inch diameter wheel, it's now 1" x 5-1/2"and still going strong.
Initial cost (Mac-Master-Carr) $35.00 works out to $7.00 per useful years life
I use it mainly to polish up all my hundreds of hand tools, miriades of old refurbished planes/chisels/ knives/and brass ware. (Most of which garnered from flea markets ,surplus stores, tag and garage sales.)
Before these wheels were introduced, I used large flap wheels (Good, but coarse)
They run hot , create sparks and leave a matte finish. The (Medium abrasive wheel I use, runs cool, is non sparking ,leaves a fine polish ,removes and blends away tool marks.
I even polish my wife's Revereware copper pots and pans (Wedding present 1955)with it.
The wheels come in several sizes and three abrasive grades Coarse,Medium and Fine. Steinmetz
Edited 8/22/2004 3:30 pm ET by steinmetz
Scotchbrite is great for cleaning the grill or on metalwork. I keep it away from my wood. You'll get a lot of people who say its great, just like they love random orbit sanders. Yuck. I find it leaves deep scratches. Looks like it works at a casual glance, then you wonder "where did all those deep scratches come from?" Cleaning or stripping, OK. I don't use it during finishing. I tried it for a while. It was always one step forward, two steps back. I tried 3M and Norton. I'm back with steel wool and pumice. I do instruments. Maybe it works OK if you're doing something with a quarter inch of poly on it, but it does not perform to my standards.
Bob is having problems, I think, because he is using the wrong stuff.
Scotch Brite (and the lines from other manufacturers) are available in a variety of grits. I buy them from a store that sells automotive paints and finishing products, and they are invaluable in the process of finishing wood (and I think superior to traditional steel wool).
The Scotch brite line (from 3M) is color coded, and available in a bewildering variety of grits. But here is a breakdown of the most useful (and commonly available):
GREEN: Coarse. I use it only for stripping.
MAROON: Medium. Mostly for rubbing down a painted surface prior to recoating, but I often use a worn piece to abrade a varnished surface.
GRAY: Fine. The workhorse for rubbing a varnished surface between coats.
WHITE: Extra fine. I don't use it much, but I do keep it around for exceptionally delicate surfaces.
Here's the technique I generally use: I will use a 320 Grit paper on all the flat surfaces to shear off dust nibs, bits of gunk and the like. I then rub down any curved surfaces with a Gray Scotch Brite, and give the flat surfaces a quick rub to remove any scratches left by the sandpaper.
3M used to make a white belt, 4x24. It was just the bee's knees for waxing flat surfaces....vroom!
No, I'm not using the "wromg stuff". Genuine 3M. White and gray. Also tried maroon. Fine for floors. Anything you're going to see up close, no. It just adds more scratches. Steel wool works better.
One of the reasons i switched to nylon pads from steel wool was the airborne slivers. I'd read a report they can lodge in the lungs, like asbestos. I don't know if they rust out, but i seem to recall the issue was scar tissue.
I have never heard that, but then again, there was a time when asbestos was considered a perfectly safe product too.
Imagine receiving a message on a subject unrelated to politics, civility, punctuation or reincarnation.... Well, this is it: Would an abrasive pad work to finish sand fluted columns on a tall clock case? I hate to use steel wool because of your concern and because it's hard to get all the residue off/out of detailed pieces where they can rust later on. I was thinking of trying shop-made sanding blocks in the flutes, but maybe the abrasive pads would do. Whatdya think?
You could try the pads, I have excellent results with them. also , try Klinspors synthentic wool. They also have sanding wheels that may work for your purpose.
Thanks. I was just now looking at the Klingspor catalog, but didn't know which product of several shown would do the trick. One thing I don't want to do is abrade away any of the more delicate details with something that's too aggressive.
<<< Would an abrasive pad work to finish sand fluted columns on a tall clock case?>>>
I suppose you could , but I would think sand paper would be a better choice (perhaps wrapped around a dowel of the appropriate size for your flutes).
The abrasive pads would smooth the surface, I suppose, but they will ride over any small bumps , etc. -- rather than shear them off as sandpaper would do.
I'd experiment with a sample piece first if you're worried about the fine details. I think the pads would work for the coarse sanding- use the maroon, then gray, then use the synthetic wool. If you have fine details, you may need to touch these up with profile sanders or do a custom block with bondo like the others have mentioned.
I'm presently doing some fluted bun feet that I am using the pads and synthetic wool on.
You guys are all great -- except Splintie who won't let me use anything Republican. (I went to Home Depot for a nice conservative hammer and all they would sell me was a liberal 15-pound maul covered in velvet.) Anyhow, that bondo idea is terrific and I'm gonna do it before using the fabric stuff. I suppose when I do use it I'll have to rub LIBERALLY!
Splintie: I'm thinking about varnish or oil-varnish over shellac with a bit of gel stain here and there to bring out detail, but I may well follow your sanding sequence anyway. Since it's all walnut, I'd like to avoid a monochrome look.
I always use a dark walnut stain, McCluskeys, over walnut anyway. Even though i have to send for it, it's way superior to Minwax sludge. It makes steamed walnut that's gotten grayed out look a lot more like Mother Nature, intended. That first sanding has to be VERY careful, though. I usually do a mist coat first to set the color if i use a stain, then a real coat, then the first sanding. I'm a simple person, so i leave the shellac and sealers and all to the intelligentsia.
If you don't want a "monochrome" look, why the heck is it all walnut? Don't forget Krylon can really make the details *pop*, too.
(The larger liberal hammer is a response to trying to hit the ever-shifting Republican nail on his head.)
Well, it's all walnut because that's the way it came, unmatched grain glueups and all. It was a kit I bought for my youngest son who was getting into woodworking at the time and never put it together. And no wonder. The "kit" consisted of 3/4 walnut stock cut roughly to size, some trim/molding pieces, and a blueprint complete with errors. I've already spent more time than I care to mention. After cutting, routing, and assembling the basics, I decided to add some curly maple inlays of my own design and I've been playing with Transtint dyes and shellac to pop the figure before putting on a seal coat. My spray gun doesn't have a lacquer nozzle and it didn't seem too cool to use aerosols on an 86-inch clock case, but maybe it would be OK. What would you use?
Is your Krylon comment about the clear stuff, or tinted?
Um...the Krylon was an attempted cuteness. Think "graffiti".
I'm not quite sure what you mean by your gun not having a lacquer "nozzle"...what kind of gun is that? I shoot everything from lacquer to latex in my guns (Floetrol makes anything possible), just by adjusting the fan and feed. I use $50 guns from the auto paint store, nothing fancy. Whne they get too banged up from lacquer, they get to be latex guns until they die.
Jeeze, and I was about to haulass up to H.D. and buy out the whole inventory. Not a very nice thing to do to an amateur, Splintie. I think need more Scotch to recover....
Ah! A pro-fess-nul drinker!
I'll join you with my hot cocoa and schnapps...amateur happy hour...
Yet another option. Use a scraper. I just grind one to match the bead or reed. Takes a little time, but not really more than going through a bunch of different paper grits. Keeps all the profiles sharp.
On the fluted columns (I suppose i should ask if yours are "innies" or "outies"?) on the tall clock case i did last year, i sprayed, then used old 320 to rub the nibs, sprayed, old 320, sprayed, and then maroon pads. They're kind of red, so i guess they were Republican pads.
I only use pads for the final rub out, not the intermediate steps, bec they ride over nibs, as stated. I use worn sandpaper up to then, normally use old 220, which is my final sanding grit before lacquer. It's too easy to sand through the extremely small surface area presented by a flute, so i power down for stuff like that.
There's also bronze wool if you can find it. Doesn't rust so it can be used on oak or other woods prone to rust spots. If you have any Bondo around, easy to make shaped sanding blocks. Put some plastic wrap on the piece. Glop on some Bondo. Press a scrap of wood on for a handle. Trim it when dry if you want it pretty.
I agree the Bondo sanding block works great to make a custom-shaped sanding block. Easy to make, cheap, and very effective.
On reading your post initially, it sounded as though you were using the extremely coarse pads -- which are in fact intended for cleaning stuff like BBQ grills.
I am mystified with the problems you had (deep scratches), since the gray and white pads are so fine. But to each his own; everybody should stay with whatever works best for their purposes.
I think probably the abrasive is not as fine or carefully graded as it could be. They work more like sandpaper with little abrasive grains embedded in nylon. Steel wool seems to work more like a scraper with long cutting surfaces. I don't much use that either, but it seems to work better. I researched the effective "grit" of the pads. They don't rate them that way, but the finest abrasive pad is only around 400 grit equivalent. The white ones use talc. Not really abrasive at all. They just burnish. Those were not useful to me.
I do very thin coats. The abrasive on 400 grit paper is a bit more than .001 particle size. That can leave scratches the entire thickness of a coat. No net progress. I do between-coats sanding with about 1200 grit. I start with as perfect a surface as I can make. The finish will not hide my mistakes in surface preparation. It only makes them more visible. This is not the expectation of most people who put on a heavy coat and count on it to spackle over all the holes and ridges on the surface. I don't use water-based finishes and my approach won't work for that. They generally won't bond to a surface that smooth.
I got a knock-off, cheaper version of the maroon Scotch-Brite pads i use for rubbing out finishes. I learned not all the pads are created equal bec these knock-off pads had little bits of harsher grit embedded in the nylon pad. I got new pads, used the bad ones for removing gunk off blades, etc.
Best way to describe these products are steel wool without the steel. They work great on finishes, but they don't work for "sanding" raw wood.
You can find them at most/every paint store
Never used the white ones, I'll have to try them. Maroon is my favorite. I used them on lacquer finishes and Corian and other solid surface products when I was a solid surface fabricator
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