Sanding Tip

In a previous post I mentioned that sandpaper and Dico plastic compound can be used to bring plastic scales back to life with surprising effectiveness. In today’s post I wanted to share a new use for the plastic compound that I recently discovered.

When making wood scales, it’s frustrating to hand sand through all the grits only to find that the scales are just not 100% perfect. Small blemishes can reveal themselves after final buffing and clean up that force you to restart the sanding process. To shortcut the process, I’ve started buffing scales earlier in the grit progression. After the 220 grit, I quickly buff the scales with the plastic compound . Off of 220, the scales don’t shine up to particularly high gloss, of course, but they shine up enough to reveal small flat spots and other areas that require more sanding (blemishes that are hard to see without buffing). I sand-buff-sand-buff-sand-buff staying at 220 and only moving to the higher grits until I get a perfect buff off of the 220.

The pros, I’m sure, may do something similar already (or find no need for such a step because they are far better sanders than me), but I thought I’d share what has worked for me. This process has greatly sped up hand sanding and saved me a lot of elbow grease.

Thanks for reading.

Brian

What might help others to eliminate sanding mistakes is to progress through the grits in order. Many feel that they are able to skip a step here or there and when working in the cabinet industry I always fought the new people we brought in who felt that the jump from 220 through 280 to 320 was unnecessary. Every time they did so I could tell and would have them sand the piece again from whatever grit they skipped. I used to be able to tell approximately what grit they skipped as well.
I will try your method; as a wood worker I don't always have an eye for what is needed in an acrylic or the such. This could help immensely, while initially it seems like it could take more time it may allow a person like myself to progress to a point where the mistake of moving on too early is all but eliminated.
Thank you.

Good tip! I think I read you correctly in thinking that it is a good idea to check your contours quickly before progressing further in the finishing process. As the gentleman said above, it is really a good idea to progress through the grits.

Thanks. I definitely work through all the grits. Not doing so would be working against yourself. I use the quick buffing step exactly as you descrbe -- simply to check reflections that reveal imperfect contour lines, depressions, etc. My rationale is that catching the imperfections early in the process will save time in the long run.

I've noticed something similar. At 220, reflections are dull and make it difficult to see surface flaws. I often do a quick hand-buff with 400-grit finishing paper to ensure I'm not missing anything.

This technique is helpful when you need to skip grit levels (such as when you need to reduce a dimension by an exact amount). You can confidently move to a finer abrasive knowing that the surface is uniform.