For my first 3 boards, I’ve done most of the coarse sanding by hand, then finished with a 1/3 sheet sander. However, for boards 4, 5 and 6 (all just started), I’ve bought a Makita 9227 sander/polisher and a bunch of Klingspor discs. I was going to get a couple of Power-Pads from Greenlight, but noticed they stopped carrying the 14mm threads, so the Shapers Australia pads look like my best option.
I was planning on getting hard for grinding fin boxes, medium for the flats, and soft for the rails and gloss coat. What do you think of them? Are they balanced? Do they last? Do I need to get all three?
I just bought one from shapers the other day, haven’t used it yet but our local shaper uses them and has had no issues as far as I know. He uses the blue (medium) ones which is what I bought, will give it a run on the weekend I hope.
I have them all they are excellent, I was given mine by a travelling oz shaper and he had done a lot of boards with them they are still perfect after 2 years further abuse from me
The grit sheets and screens are excellent!!
If I lost them I would be straight on the phone to replace them
i use the medium with 80 grit for the initial sand on my boards then, move down to the medium with 120. then soft 120 soft 150 soft 180 etc. The work great. I’ve had mine for almost a year and about a dozen boards now and nothing wrong with them.
the soft if good for sanding your rails with the sander on a low speed setting I find.
Not sure i’d bother with the hard, i’d imagine it would remove material very quickly. maybe a bit too fast for me - meaning burn throughs!
Thanks for the responses, it’s good to hear they are well regarded. I’ll definitely get the soft and the medium, and might as well get the hard since it’s only another $35 (currently I’ve been using an angle grinder to grind down the probox fin boxes, which is a delicate and frustrating proceedure, so hopefully the hard pad does this job better).
I have a hard pad that came with the grinder (about 10mm thick, yellow), I think it’s good for plugs and finboxes etc but I’m not as confident using it as an overall sander for the reasons pirate mentioned. I have done it but I’m confident the medium will take a lot of the worry away…I hope.
Make sure you let us know how you go using the medium pad (with photos!) I’m still a little while away from that stage, currently in the final stages of shaping two boards, then have to vac-bag both with bamboo veneer, so at my current rate of progress will be into December before glassing.
One of the reasons why I got the Makita 9227 is the true variable speed control, hoping that with the right backing pad I won’t have any burn throughs…but also hoping I can sand a lot quicker than with the old 1/3 sheet sander (that thing took me hours to do a board!)
One thing Shapers has going for them is their service - as a backyarder who does 2 or 3 boards a year I can order online and receive it in the next day or two. Burfords doesn’t have a web presence and Surfblanks website still thinks it’s 2001. It’s crazy that it’s easier for me to order a Power-Pad from Greenlight in the USA than it is from a local Aussie company, but I guess Burfords and Surfblanks are setup to service the industry, not the backyard hack like me.
Thanks for the input, I think I’ll still try the Shaper’s backup pads.
I’ve been using Shapers sanding pads for years and all (soft,med&hard) are still in pretty good condition for the work they’ve been through. Just ordered a heap of gear from them yesterday, and they just rang to tell me that it’ll be here tommorrow (great service!). BTW, just ordered one of their “velvet air” pads to use for sanding (800 + grits) prior to buffing, have been told that they are fantastic.
Midget (surfblanks) also provides great service, especially here on the Eastcoast. I’m 800km away from their factory in Sydney but whenever I order blanks, resin, acetone etc it is always delivered for free and within 2-3 days (ALSO great service!).
Dion, on the other hand were/are not very helpful at all (or maybe I spoke to someone with their “cranky pants” on).