Sanding segmented suggestions?

[Rmartin]

I made a pen today for a friend's sister. She is a fan of Florida football. So I used some blue dyed and stabilized maple with some orange plastic.

The problem I had and have had before when sanding segmented pieces of different hardness is they don't sand evenly. I can feel little ridges. I evened it back out with a light pass of my round nosed scrapper, but then I'm left with needing to sand again.


Have you had this problem? How do you deal with it?

 

[Drstrangefart]

I use the skew. Make sure it's really sharp and use the touch of a neurosurgeon. Add a couple of coats of thin CA, sand the CA down, then finish as usual. See if that helps any.

 

[hewunch]

If you use a flat tool like a scraper or skew on it's long side or a carbide tool you can skip sanding altogether if you need to.

 

[Rmartin]

Thanks for the suggestions. I guess I've gotten so used to micro sanding, it's hard habit to break.

I ended up sanding and then building up a CA finish to get a smooth surface.

 

[Drstrangefart]

Thanks for the suggestions. I guess I've gotten so used to micro sanding, it's hard habit to break.

I ended up sanding and then building up a CA finish to get a smooth surface.

That's also an effective solution. One note: I ran into sanding issues with blue acrylic segment in bloodwood. The dust from the bloodwood deposited itself into the surface of the acrylic pretty deep from friction, and even cross-sanding followed by the skew didn't quite get all of it out.

 

[soligen]

If you use a flat tool like a scraper or skew on it's long side or a carbide tool you can skip sanding altogether if you need to.

This is what I do. I dont sand mixed materials until after I built up enough CA that I wont sand through it.

 

[Displaced Canadian]

You can also use a sanding block.

 

[KenV]

I often make little sanding blocks from tongue depressers, small pieces of steel, or similar so the surface is even.

Electric drill with the sanding disk like used on a bowls will keep things pretty even also