Sanding raised panel

[Alexander Galkin]

How do I sand raised panel profiles?

[Tom]

Very carefully. You don't want to round over the corners, or the reliefs. Perhaps a "custom" sanding block or two will be in order. Tom Someday, it'll all be over....

[Micro*]

Lubricate with a lot of elbow grease. :-)

-- "Shut up and keep diggen" Jerry

[Mike G]

carefully

[Alexander Galkin]

This is understandable. My question is how to send non-flat surfaces.

[Bill Rogers]

By hand. Or can you be more specific? Do you mean to sand before or after assembly? rounded edges? ...just what is the problem?

Bill.

[bridger]

fair enough, and you have gotten some good as well as smart ass answers...

there are lots of methods and no rules.

take a sheet of sandpaper. lay it over your profiled edge, creasing and bending it so it lays tightly against the wood, abrasive side down. spray a glop of polyfoam insulation onto the back of it. when it hardens you'll have a single use sanding block.

make a piece of wood that fits same as above. attach sandpaper and you have a reusable sanding block.

purchase a profile sander. some people swear by them, others swear at them. my porter cable one doesn't get much use, but sometimes it's very handy. the fein one is more versatile, but not so good for molding profiles.

fold, roll up and cut to shape bits of sandpaper and use them between your fingers. no matter what else you do, you'll probably end up doing some of this.

[Mike G]

Well, first you sand the parts that are across the grain. That way you take out any scratch marks that may get on the width the grain direction should you inadvertently get any,

If you have something that matches the profile you can wrap whatever you are sanding with around it or just carefully sand by hand

[Bernard Randall]

First question is: What's the purpose of the sanding? Is it following a machining operation? In this forum the majority of non professional workers use routers to generate profiles. Properly sharpened routers run at the appropriate speed and at the correct feed rate produce near perfect profiles which require little or no after machine work. Occasionally, due to grain irregularities you can get tear out especially if you are trying to take too deep a cut; you also have fibers, normally on the top edge, which aren't properly sheared.

For this type of clean up work I use various grades of non-woven abrasives, if you're not familiar with them they are an alternative to steel wool, they come in many different formats, some suitable for use on ROS or orbital sanders, others in hand pad form. Grits range from very coarse to ultra fine suitable for de-nibbing after varnish operations.

You need to tell us exactly what you're trying to do.

Bernard R

[Tom Veatch]

Never tried this myself, but remember seeing it in one of the ww mags within the last couple of years. Form a profiled sanding block from Bondo - the auto body filler - using the raised panel (or scrap cut to the same profile) as a mold with something thin and flexible (aluminum foil, plastic wrap, ... ?) as a release film. Then use the Bondo profile as your sanding block.

I can easily imagine profiles for which that would not be satisfactory but for yours ... maybe.

Tom Veatch Wichita, KS USA