Official Luthiers Forum!

Just a heads up.
I've always hand sanded everything (don't trust myself with an ROS) and as you know it's a dusty business.
I built my own smallish downdraft table , but find it space consuming for a small shop, and a pain to drag it out and set up then store again after, if it's big enough for whatever I'm sanding. Also it needs my big collector to be hooked up, (3 HP)
As a result of this post on "The Luther Blog" http://www.theluthierblog.com/articles/mirka-sanding-block/ I purchased one, 75 x 125mm, with the convex blocks for guitar waists.
And have been using it recently, sanding large chunks of ply with 80 grit (solera/hand planing boards) and have found it works amazingly well.
Normally there would be dust absolutely everywhere, but it's virtually all in my new dust extractor (actually an "bagless" ash vacuum, cyclonic with 3 stage filtration, up to HEPA)
The whole set lives under the end of my bench, to hand easily, so I have no excuses for a dusty shop when sanding, and even better - I don't have blocked up sinuses and a nose full of black snot. All for a relatively modest investment.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

We've been thinking about one. I was a little concerned by the squishiness of it, worried about it not keeping the sides dead flat. Currently we use a flat block of hardwood which gets the sides dead flat. I'd be worried about this one skimming and compressing over any small ripples...

Kevin Aram used one in his finishing demo at the GAL convention this last summer. After seeing it in action I want one too!

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

Me too, and my initial leveling of any wood will still be done with a hard block.
Once the surface is level, it shouldn't be a problem.
Same story for finish leveling, as mentioned in the blog. (I normally start with a thin cork faced block for finish leveling)


Interesting, I wish I'd been there!

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

I just switched my ROS over to Abranet & I have no regrets - it cuts faster & lasts longer. IMO the time saved and the longer life more than offsets the cost.

Kevin Looker

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I'm not a luthier.
I'm just a guy who builds guitars in his basement.
It's better than playing golf.

I have one of the hand sanders with vac and also use Mirka disks in my ROS. I find that sanding down things like inlay, purfling and rosettes is great with the handheld vac sander as the vac virtually stops any cross contamination of light and dark. Will not use anything else now and my shop and lungs are much cleaner.

Cheers, Bob

Strange, I tried posting before but apparently the post varnished. Anyway, yet to say I like mine very much, but I only use accost one. Where did you find the convex one, if I may ask?

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member of the guild of professional dilettantes

http://www.restexpress.co.uk/acatalog/Mirka_Curved_Pad_for_Abranet.html for the 75 x 125mm

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Kevin,

I am interested in trying the Abranet, but it is a little confusing on how the discs work. I have a Porter Cable 343 and a Porter Cable 382 ROS. Both are 5" hook and loop.
Do the Abranet discs work with the PC hook and loop system?
Or, do i have to change the pad out on the PC?
How do the backer pads for the Abranet attach to the existing hook and look pad?
Are the Abranet grits equivalent to regular sand paper grits.
Do you use yours for wet sanding, and is there a different Abranet disk for dry vs. wet sanding.
Once I get some answers to narrow down my search, I want to order some sample discs to try out.

Thanks,

James

Thanks , and sorry for stupid iphone autocorrect...

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member of the guild of professional dilettantes

All you need is one of these, James. http://www.woodessence.com/Mirka-Abrane ... 02C27.aspx It attaches to your ROS pad just like a H&L disc, and the Abranet disc attaches to the pad protector.

Alex

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"Indecision is the key to flexibility" .... Bumper sticker

You need the pad protector because the Abranet screen will eventually shear the "hooks" off your sanding pad. The problem is that the holes in the pad protector only line up with the Mirka pads so you''ll probably have to get a Mirka pad, about $40.

I just started using the Abranet for a non guitar project sanding a bunch of hard Maple and I'm only going up to 180 grit. To me the grits appear the same as other sandpapers. I suspect if there is a difference it will be noticeable at the higher grits.

Hope this helps.

Kevin Looker

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I'm not a luthier.
I'm just a guy who builds guitars in his basement.
It's better than playing golf.

A guitar maker buddy reported abranet is good up to the 400-600 grit range, but not past. I think you'll need to look elsewhere for finish sanding...