So as to cut down on the dreaded “swirls” how would I cut the sandpaper? Points outside the pad? Or within the pad? How far apart are the cuts? Thanks.
Is this what you mean?
6 or 8 points.
I do it like this. -Carl
If you’re not a pro polishing 7 boards a day, why not go by hand?
Use the polisher for rubbing and finish, of course, and the sanding by hand so you don’t dig too deep…
Howzit 220, I place the disc on the sand paper so three sides are even distanc from the edge and then cut the long side so the disc is in the center of the square paper with about 1/2" open around it then just cut the corners so there is also 1/2" from disc. This gives more unbacked sand paper to take off scratches. Sorry no diagram.Aloha,Kokua
I do it sorta like Carl’s sketch, but my sketch was the best I could do with my primitive graphics prog. and limited skills.
Basically, I use a 9" disk template to cut out the paper for a 6" disk, lay the 6" disk on the paper @ center and flat side it all around with cheap glass sissors that have gotten dull. I end up with 6 to 8 sides. I don’t try to be too precise, it wastes too much time.
I’ve seen this subject come up before but have not tried it yet. Thank you Carl and Ozzy for the drawings.
I’ve been hand sanding my gloss resin…
Starting with a problem free gloss coat ,a power sander,and some paper cut to the drawing…
Can some one walk us through the steps ? What grit to start with…When to switch to hand sanding
Thank you
Ray
Well, … . Not to touch on a larger subject, but … (here goes)
What I have tried and done (sometimes repeatedly), is not necessarily what I do now, or have ended up doing as a standard.
Keep in mind, I have not had anyone to show or tell me anything. I started out with no advice, no computer, no internet, no ‘Swaylocks’, no anything. Needless to say, like many people in this forum, I learned it all by trial and error. Ok, more error than trial.
That said, … I don’t use a spinning disk and ‘points’ for gloss finishing – now.
I tried it. But I prefer to spend a little more time and trouble using a DA (DoubleAction) air drive sander for the finer grits. It gives better results. And considering my ‘poorness’, I tend to use the rougher sandpaper disks longer than I should. That leads to the little wax nipples on the paper, which leads to more swirlies. Which leads to depending more on a DA to clean up the mess. Why not skip the middle caca?
Not that you asked… (you’re welcome), jusk joking dude,
Now, I dry sand to 320 (120, 220, 320) then use a secret sauce satin or textured speed finish to seal the exposed cloth on the lap and the rest of the board. (The fin patches also, but that is another subject entirely.)
For a gloss and polish, I use #220 to #320 (depending on the quality of the glosscoat) to ‘break’ the glaze and knock down the tits, then #220/#320, then the DA. #320/#400, #600, #1000, (#1500, #2000 once in a while), polish. Doing the rougher grits (and most of the grits) dry, is a real asset to me. I can use a dusty hand to wipe the sanded area to see any rougher grit scratches left from the previous grits while working the finish. It’s a lot slower going if I’m doing it wet. If you use good sharp wet/dry paper and have a good eye and sander control, you can streamline the finishing process. Then I throw in a good machine polish to finish it off.
Keep in mind that skipping grits or doing it dry is kind of tricky, and not for the faint of heart. You have to keep the disk paper blown off real good, and you need to have your stuff packed pretty tight to do it. I don’t recomend it for beginners.
I’m sure this is not the best way to do it. All I can say is this is the way ‘I’ do it.
{Edit} Made a couple of corrections after my brain started working. I know saying dry is like throwing a turd in the punchbowl… . . . …but…{/edit}
I’m not completely sure what’s going on here but i’d like to add something. If i’m correct you guys are wanting to cut “points” into your sandpaper to remove swirls or what we call “wheelies” correct? If so you may be making a mistake and making more work for yourselves. When I first started polishing i too cut points into my sandpaper. I was getting alot of wheelies and having a bitch of time fine sanding them out. In 1992 I started at moonlight glassing as hand sander and polisher. The glosser Mark Donnellan was considered the best glosser/polisher at that time and he furthered my training over the next few years. He taught me to cut my sandpaper perfectly round, 1/4 inch larger then the sanding pad all the way around. NO CORNERS. He showed me how after he glued the paper on, he would use his fingers to slightly curl the paper around the edges of the pad so the edge never really contacts the board. My wheelie problem went away literally overnite. He also showed me that if you can sand properly and cut your paper right, you can finish sand with 500 grit instead of 600 grit. He said he never understood how people would start with 320, then jump 80 grit up to 400 grit, but then jump 200 grit up to 600? Doesn’t make sense even though each grit gets progressively smoother. On top of that the 600 loads up the paper with those little sanding dust balls that leave little smears melted into the gloss that don’t come out. 600 has a hard time removing 400 scratches so you end up working it more and the paper loads up. This doesn’t happen near as bad when sanding out 500 scratches with 600. For the next 10 years straight I polished 75% of all the boards that went through moonlight with this 320/400/500 no corners in the paper system. We did all Brewers balsa tradeshow guns, Merricks high end stuff as well as all the bonzers this way. We were regarded in the industry as having some of the best finish work you could find anywhere. The only time i’d use 600 grit would be certain darker colored boards like deep reds and purples,that I wanted to get extra shiney shiney!! But i still used the 500, just in between the 400 and 600. Moonlight still has the same rep for quality finishes, and the guy polishing most of them now is the owners son who sometimes posts here as TFAD. He was trained by me with the same exact method. Hope this helps!
…Im with Lokbox, I never understand why those “points” benefits the sanding process…
…I go with 320 in a hard way with super soft pad, then 400, then slightly 500 , 600 and sometimes 1000…cut (the paper) about 2 cm more than the pad…
My method:
I go with the round paper method. I glue it on then cut it around .25 - . 50" ;arger diameter than the pad
A. Depending on the smoothness of the gloss, I’ll either start with 220, (bad gloss) or 320 (Good Gloss)
B. 400
C. 600. I’ll try to the 500 if I can find some.
(I’ll hand sand the rails with. For the above, I’ve tried both wet and dry and am not sure which is a better way to go.)
No need to go over 600.
D. Rough cut compound
E. Then a medium cut or a fine cut
F. Imperial microfinishing
G. Marine wax
DONE! Comes out a like a mirror
Drew
Rough cut compound actually makes more work also. We moved away from it 10 years ago to shurluster, which is now called surfboard polish #2, and finish with mirror glaze #5 or 7. 3M super duty compound is gritty when you rub it between your fingers. Puts scratches in while your trying to take them out?!!??!?!?! Forgot to mention that it goes 320- 400 - then wetsand rails with worn out 320 disc folded in half,then a new piece of 500 (the piece that dropped off the sheet i cut), then dry the board real good, and then your 500 on the machine. When you wetsand the rails overlap your fingers past the lap line, then when machining the 500 step wrap the machine past where your rail scratches end. Your welcome and we’ll discuss my royalties later. 
Thanks !!!
You answered my next questions before I got a chance to ask them.
Share the stoke…
I surfed dawn patrol at San Onofre on Sunday and left a box of wood next to a fire pit with Share the Stoke on it!
Ray
Quote:
So as to cut down on the dreaded "swirls" how would I cut the sandpaper? Points outside the pad? Or within the pad? How far apart are the cuts? Thanks.
[=Blue]Aloha 220
I am with Jim (LokBox) on this issue. His system is nearly the same as mine. Though I never use 320 or higher except on absolutely the worst glosses.
Sanding is a science with a dash of art thrown in. Polishing is still sanding, just on a finer scale. The science says that the fastest and flattest removal of material with the least amount of effort and materials used would be best.
Things that stick up and need to be sanded flat require 3 things to get rid of them effectively depending on how bad the “things that stick up”, stick up!
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Higher Rotation speeds
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Grittier Grit
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Harder pads.
Once the initial cuts are made to flatten the bumps, the rest of the process is primarily only there to remove the scratches from the previous step in the process.
Using too Gritty of a grit to cut the initial bumps flat, will just increase the amount of work needed to remove the scratches left by the coarse grit.
Using too Fine of a grit will require too much effort and force. It will waste time and unnecessarily heat up the board. If the sanding pad used isn’t hard enough then the sandpaper will be able to comply with the bumps too much and will track in and out of the bumps rather than easily shear them off from the top down, arriving at mirror flat surfaces.
The sanding pad surface should be clean and without globby glue and sandpaper build up that can score the boards surface. Regardless of how hard or soft the pad is, you can help release the pads edge slightly by cutting a radius into the foam at the edge.
Rotation speed will help keep the pad flatter even if it is a softer pad than the bumpy work surface really requires. But it is preferable to have a hard enough pad that won’t deform into the dips but will rather quickly cut off the tops of the bumps till they are equal with the dips.
Use the faster rotation speeds, harder pads and grittier sandpaper for the flatter areas. As you get near the curves like rails, nose flip, concaves etc, use progressively slower speeds, softer pads and finer grit sandpaper. So that the combo will comply better with the surface and not burn through the gloss or hotcoat for that matter.
To take the bead off the rails I use the machine and a medium pad with 400 grit. I don’t hand sand anywhere on the board except to lightly go over the bead area with new 600 grit after machining it.
If sanding swirls exist, and everyone gets them once in awhile, it is mostly an issue of technique and machine control and less the exact materials used. Not getting them in the first place is the best thing. Second best is having the next steps in your process capable of removing them in the normal process, without special efforts.
…this thread converted to a gloss one, so, I can add that the problem with the gloss is not in the sanding process almost, its more in the resin application…
…the climate, a controlled room, and a good resin (its not a joke, in many places or countries you dont have good resin, less gloss resin)are the basis for a perfect gloss, cause if you ve got a perfect resin work, youll obtain a smoothness surface; due to that, you can start like B B say…
The worse thing that ever happened to me was when I found out that I was good at polishing, lol.
Most rub-out guys are 6’ and 200 lbs, I’m 5’7" and 155. Oh well, there is nothing better than taking that final pass on a really nice red tint rail and watching the shine appear. Makes me feel a deeper connecting to surfing.
Check out the link, e-wing bonzers are the ultimate test of your polishing skills. The trick is to just embrace making 5 bucks an hour and do it to stoke out the customer.
Howzit TFAD, $5.00 an hour for polishing is a joke. Rick Holt was over yesterday for a chat and this exact subject came up. He said gloss and polishes are going for about $70 these days and I only charge $45 so I guess it's time to raise my prices even though they are easy for me. But who's really making the money at $5 an hour. Aloha,Kokua
Kokua I think he means he just gets wrapped up in making it perfect and keeps going until it is. I polished shitloads of bonzers, with e-wings, and all 5 glassed on. I got $25 for those regardless of length. If it pissed me off i’d charge $30. Wouldn’t touch one these days for less then $40. The whole tail has to be sanded by hand practically. Trying to do one of those in 1 hour is not possible. Well if you don’t mind putting out crap it is. I laugh constantly (sorry) at glassers that charge less than $60 for gloss and polish. Your losing money on every board.
Good glosser charges at least $10 to gloss it.
He’ll use gloss resin, buckets,razor blades,respirator cartridges, mounds of tape and lots of acetone,surfacing agent and styrene. Your at $20 minimum at this point.
Rub out guy gets at least $25 these days. He’ll use lots of sandpaper,dust masks,tape,compound/mirror glaze,buff pads that are about $13 each,and lots and lots of electricity. Probably be safe to say about $35 to $40 worth of stuff just in the rub-out room.
Do the math. Nobody in any other industry would give you a finish like that on any product and not make 1 dollar profit.