I’ve commented before on swirls that I was getting on my last two boards and everyone was nice enough to offer advice so maybe you can give your opinion on this. in the past I have used the higher grade sandpaper from home depot but I recently bought some from a surf supply store and it appears to me a much better quality.
I thought that maybe my sanding pad had a little too much adhesive spray build up around the edges so I got a new pad but that didn’t seem to help.
is my problem that I’m using sandpaper from Home Depot? I have not used the paper fron the surf supply store yet but I’ve got 2 more boards ready for sanding and I don’t want to go through what I did on the last two and the only thing I can think is that it might be is the HD paper.
Howzit Adam30, Are you cutting the paper the same size as the pad? Try cutting the paper bigger (as big as you can) or with six sides, it shouldn’t leave swirls. I use this for sanding glosses and itleaves no swirls. Aloha,Kokua
Howzit SharkCountry, Usually as big as the paper is wide, same with the six sided cut. That is around 1". I prefer the six sided cut for sanding gloss jobs and the round cut for sanding the hot coat.Aloha,Kokua
Swirls are from the technique, not the paper - its a dance to get it right! There are tons of threads on here about how different people sand - the progression of hard to soft pads and heavy to fine grit and how to cut your paper etc etc. You just have to find your rhythm and you will work it out!
Just go ahead and use the sandpaper from the surf supply - you will wonder why you ever bothered with the HomeDepot paper!
Reverb is right, most of the swirls come from crap stuck on the paper. Sometimes even crap under the paper stuck in the tacky glue. This can come from uncured resin, too much heat on the pad, grit too fine (oversanding and heating again), bad glassing, etc. It starts on the edges of the paper first. If the resin is OK, then it’s just technique. Lots of technique tips in the archives. The best way to minimize sanding problems is in the glassing, both lam and hotcoat. If these are both as smooth as can be, there’s obviously less sanding.
Howzit Pete, Yes crap on the sandpaper will leave swirls but they are easy to remove. Just use your fingernail to loosen the crap and then blow them off with your compressor. Aloha,Kokua
Home Depot sells one of the very best sandpapers available; Norton Champaine(sp). As stated by others; swirls are usually a result of technique or lack of progression thru the various grits of paper needed to eliminate swirls. Much has been spoken of previously in the archives about intitial grits, finer grits, handsanding etc.