Sandpaper Again

Re: Sandpaper Again

Paul Kierstead


>If you can get to the grocery store by walking, then what would you use a car for?

Clearly sandpaper is not necessary, but that doesn't make it useless either. It can be a quick, sensible and effective way to gain the surface you desire. You can also achieve the same (or similiar) surface via other means, possibly as quickly and effciently depending on the wood and the skill. One thing you will note is that older furniture seems to rarely have the wild, reversing grain; they just tossed or burned or something the bits that weren't "good", whereas we tend to use them.

The sandpaper or not sandpaper is a lot like whether or not to use a tablesaw; it is a matter of preference and personal goals, not a matter of the quality of the final product. Just my CAD$0.02; clearly some feel a planed surface to be of higher quality (I would claim it is different at best, and even that is debatable under finish).

Re: Sandpaper Again

Patrick Gibbons, Houston, TX


>My main point has nothing to do with which is better, sandpaper or planes, it has more to do with how we think about woodworking, or better yet, how we think to work wood. Most (including myself) come at a problem with modern assumptions concerning how the problem is presented and how to solve it. Adam Cherubini once replied to another question (I'm paraphrasing) concerning a hand tool usage that it's tough to trust someone's methods who has access to power tools if all else fails. I believe his point was that if you only have hand tools to use, you have to think of different ways to handle problems. When this issue of sandpaper vs whatever has come up the thought that 18th century craftsmen had sandpaper and used it is always posited. That seems to me to be a modern way of approaching the problem. It's funny. When I was thinking about this I didn't even give a second's attention to the question of which is better. I was more trying to get into the mind (as much as possible) of the 18th century craftsman.

Re: Sandpaper Again

Paul Kierstead


>Ah, I misinterpreted then, the question seemed rhetorical. I think the echos of many past discussions on the topic come to interfere.

To be honest, I don't entirely understand your question. I would imagine that the 18th century craftsman would use sandpaper for the same reasons it is used today.

Re: Sandpaper Again

ThomD


>I think part of the question has to be which is better. They were probably pretty focussed on making a living back then and tended to do a lot of things that aren't super comon on our modern day crafty stuff, like carving, marketry and veneer work and wild grain, this stuff is all done today but is rarely what is being talked about in the mags and the general info flow. So if they could have made a good go of it with those materials using sandpaper why not?

On thing that makes the question a little more difficult to answer is that sandpaper is improving much faster than any other part of the tool thing i can think of. I don't think most woodworkers are even seriously considering what sandpaper could do for them. And that is before even wading into what sandpaper can do in a support function like grinding tools or making them etc...

One thing sandpaper seems pretty inevitable for is polishing the finish. They would have loved the ability to do what we do in the average autobody setting. The King would have gone nuts. Of what about buffing out the keys on apiano till they looked like marble and the results being pretty permanent. To paraphrase Adam, we can't trust what modern workers, working only with handltools, think about what an earlier worker freed from that constraint would have done.

old surfaces weren't that good!

bill tindall


>In the past couple of years I have taken the opprotunity to find some good old furniture to study-Wintethur, MESDA, antique shops, etc.

The mahogany stuff is mostly finished to the standards I strive for, and the domestic woods are largely not. The 18th century cabinet makers trying to feed a family and not go bankrupt (the records of Chester Co. contain a long list of bankrupt cabinet makers) sent lots of torn grain out the door, I could say typically sent torn grain out the door. They had the same problems planing cherry and walnut as I have as evidenced from the pieces I have studied.

What they had were planes not nearly as good as we can buy today and a need to not spend for ever diddling with a piece to get it perfect or they would starve. From wood I have seen in pieces I would argue that we have available (can afford) better wood too. I see lots of old stuff with knots used in visible surfaces, even drawer fronts and tops( and the grain is all torn). Heck, I saw a mahogany table in the MET with a huge knot in its top. Probably cost them a million dollars to buy it (the old table not the board).

I believe that most of us strive for a surface much more perfect than was the norm back then with domestic woods. It is little wonder that we (at least me) has difficulty getting such perfection with common hand tools alone.

If someone wants to finish a top to their standards with planes and sacapers alone that is fine by me. I will admire their skill and patience and be accepting of how they want to spend their time and money. I would not have much patience for a superior attitude that went with that approach.

PS would have been better with sandpaper

bill tindall

Re: Sandpaper Again *LINK*

Chris Scholz


>No answers to you questions but a few follow-up questions with regards to the use of sandpaper:

According to Wikipedia sandpaper was known in the East since the 13th century when "crushed shells, seeds, and sand were bonded to parchment using natural gum". Does anybody know what this sand paper was actually used for?

Thanks

Chris


Wikipedia on Sandpaper

Good question

Adam Cherubini,NJ


>Pat,

I don't use sandpaper on wood (I sharpen on it though). And I don't find my pieces lacking in anyway as a result. So I agree. I certainly don't need it and I wonder why 18th c craftsmen would have it and how they might have possibly used it.

We shouldn't assume its grit was either very fine or uniform. They couldn't grind pigment for paint very finely, so I would think glass would have been harder for them to grind. Their sandpaper may very well have been a slow cutting 36 grit!

Adam

Re: Sandpaper Again

Ted Wong


>At the College of the Redwoods there is a long standing myth that all that gets used are handplanes and scrapers. Sorry to shatter any visions anyone may have had about the school but sandpaper is alive and well at the College of the Redwoods. And even if I never saw the old man do it (I never paid that close attention to what he was doing). I'm sure he snuck in a couple of good sandings here and there. One thing I learned while I was there is that there is no sense in getting caught up in orthodoxy. If it works do it.

Re: Sandpaper Again

Moses Yoder in White Pigeon, MI


>I am not an historian, nor have I ever played one on tv. But when I think about it, I would think that sand paper would have been used a lot on figured veneers. If I was to put down a nice figured veneer on a door panel or case top, I would probably have used hide glue and a veneer hammer. It would not have been necessary to plane this, and probably would have been a great tragedy. Scraping would have been faster than sanding, but scraping in my opinion does not leave an evenly polished surface. I find myself going over a piece that has been scraped just to blend in the shiny areas with the not so shiny areas, and the streaks my scraper may leave behind.

You should see the sander in the shop at my day job. I think it will sand a 54" wide panel, leaving a surface behind on a very large panel in a matter of minutes that would take me days to replicate with hand tools. Chipendale would be in awe if he woke up today! It is not really the tools that make a craftsman; it is the attitude of the craftsman. Often times, if a person is building something merely to make money, he will start to cut corners. When he does that, he will find out that most people do not know the difference between a well made piece and one that is not well made. Then he will start really cutting corners. He finds that he can make a lot of money in a hurry. A huge cloud of dust rises around him, and he may never realize what he is missing. The fact is, there is never enough money; no matter how much there is, there is always the want for more. A person who builds things because they like the work and the wood takes an entirely different road.

Re: Sandpaper Again - an alternative...

John Aniano in Central NJ...


>Patrick,

You might want to consider another alternative that was available to 18th and certainly 19th century woodworkers, that of the pumice stone. No, not the fine ground up stuff, I'm speaking of the pumice block that was generally flattened and worked to finish surfaces nicely.

Take for instance a piecrust table. Many tables were made from solid thick stock, the center was relieved and the edge carved with moulding. How did they flatten the center region, especially near the moulded edge? I would guess they used various broad gouges, then planes, then scrapers to get the center region flattened, then they could work the region over with a flat pumice stone, right up to the moulded edge. I have read that pumice stones were used in this way in various old books including one from 1902 that I own. One very old painting text mentions using flat pumice stones to smooth the gesso on painting panels. Even into the early 20th century composition emery blocks were made for this purpose. Similar concept, different abrasive. From these old texts, I assume pumice blocks were pretty common "tools" back then although now, if we were to stumble upon them in an old tool box, we might wonder what they were used for.

I have tried the pumice stone method to finish/flatten and it does work well. I've used it on finishing the octagonal facets of the musical instrument bows I make and find it works quite well. I true up the pumice stones frequently on my Norton diamond stone true-up stone (the slotted one) and this works great. You can also use a bit of lubricating oil, Tung oil or linseed oil between the pumice stone and workpiece and this tends to fill the wood pores a bit, but also fills up the pores of the pumice stone and makes it cut less well.

I've gotten my supply of pumice stones from Kremer Pigments in NYC. They are small, roughly 1.5" to 2" and irregular in shape. These particular stones seem to have a cutting "grit" similar to a 400 or 600 grit SiC paper.

Over and out,

John

Another source

David Barnett - SW Florida


>John,

I don't know how much pumice you use (I use a lot), but you can buy sixty bags of five stones per bag on eBay for sixty dollars. If you need just a few now and then, pet stores carry the same bags of five for chinchillas to nibble (under two dollars, usually) I also like the flattened stones with paddles/handles for smoothing calluses. I bought a few dozen for sixty cents apiece in a dollar store. They're one to two dollars singly, I think. Very handy.

David, who tithes at Kremer