Official Luthiers Forum!

I use a lot of paper for masking, glue ups, full size drawings, etc and found this roll of Butcher's paper at a Restaurant supply store cheap:

-I go through a lot of Norton 3x sandpaper. I get it in bulk packs from the building supply our company uses at discount which is nice.
-My new drum sander seems to go through a boat load of abrasive, seems to hardly last at all when sanding exotic hardwoods like ziricote. Anyone have a good source? Do not need precut or anything if it is a lot more.
-3M auto finish papers up to 2000 grit for scary sharp. Hopefully switching to stones soon.
-Most of my finishing so far has been in tung oil or danish oil, so I go through a ton of rags and lots of those tin containers of the stuff. Also a lot of disposable gloves because re-usable ones are too thick to work with.
-Bandsaw blades dont seem to last too long, have pooched 3 or 4 last year. What do you even do with em, scrap yard?
-Tape of course, 3M blue and LMI binding mostly

Too afraid to say how I dispose of everything in fear of the Eco Reich come knocking on my door.
But seriously, I try and minimize waste as much as possible and dispose of waste as responsibly as possible, there is still an awful lot of waste from a shop though.

Aluminum Foil, Wax Paper , Tweezers, Small Mixing cups , Stir sticks ( craft store sticks buy in bulk) Razor blades . The list goes on and on .

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I use Klingspor's Woodworking Shop for drum sander abrasive rolls and cut my own.

http://www.woodworkingshop.com/cgi-bin/3725B2EE/mac/qryitems.mac/itemDisplay?qryType=STYLE&itemSt=PE003X18&coreDsc=3%22X%2018%20METER%20ALUMINUM%20OXIDE%20BULK%20ROLLS

http://www.woodworkingshop.com/cgi-bin/3725B2EE/mac/qryitems.mac/itemDisplay?qryType=STYLE&itemSt=PE003X50&coreDsc=3%22X%2050%20METER%20ALUMINUM%20OXIDE%20BULK%20ROLLS

21 wraps on a 16" sander for less than $90 for 80 grit, 50 meter rolls of premium abrasive is the best deal I've found.

Tarhead, that works out to around $4 per wrap, nice. Thanks for the link!

I get roll sandpaper for my drum sander here:

http://supergrit.com/products/products_ ... -cloth.asp

I believe that the last feed belts for my sander came from them as well.

I've read here in the OLF and use Easy Off Oven Cleaner to re-new the abrasive for drum cleaners. Works like a charm!

_________________
Michael Lloyd

“I was born to ignorance, yes, and lesser poverties ...
I was born to privilege that I did not see ... I didn’t know it, but my way was paved” – John Gorka

I have been sanding a lot of ziricote recently and the trouble with the stuff is you get these hideous burn lines all built up on the abrasive that you literally have to scrape off. Pretty much ruins the wrap... do you think the oven cleaner will take that off?

I've seen this stuff clean-up my belts like new, burn marks and all.

I spray it on, let sit 30 minutes, rinse with water and let dry.

_________________
Michael Lloyd

“I was born to ignorance, yes, and lesser poverties ...
I was born to privilege that I did not see ... I didn’t know it, but my way was paved” – John Gorka

I used coffee filters to apply Tru-Oil to a Ukeulele I just finished. We don't use them normally for coffee and found a monster pack at BigLots for cheap. Worked amazingly well and they dry in a few minutes layed flat. No rag disposal to worry about, no lint or paper towel fuzz, no drag or steaking the finish. Nicely burnished

I would avoid Oven Cleaner. Pretty nasty stuff. Try sanding a 4-6" square sheet of Polycarb or Plexiglass right on the burn line. That should get most of the streak off the abrasive. On Y grade abrasive (the heavy polyester backed abrasive that Jet and Klingspor use) I also use a bath over night in Simple Green cut 50% with water and then scrub with a stiff tire cleaning brush to get bad pitch build up. Rinse well in tap water.

You can also put your circular saw and table saw blades in the same solution to get them clean.

FYI According to simple green....

"Simple Green has been successfully used by many woodworkers over many years as a good “spray – wipe – rinse” cleaner for saw blades. When pitch is fairly fresh (typically within a 12-hr period since deposit) it is fairly easily removed with Simple Green. Older, dried-out pitch is much more difficult to remove. We do not recommend long-term soaking of Carbide blades in Simple Green. Long-term exposure like this can possibly cause cobalt leaching that will, in turn, affect the integrity or carbide. Shorter term “spray/wipe/rinse” applications do not create that kind of problem."

Caustic solutions such as Oven cleaner do not have this problem. When I asked them, Forrest recommended cleaning with Turpentine.

-jd

Oven Cleaners definitely can create issues with brazed Carbide teeth in addition to safety risks and a ton of environmental issues.
Here's what Charles McCracken at Freud said a few years ago (prior to Simple Green revising their instructions related to cleaning blades) related to Carbide integrity:

"Definitely avoid oven cleaner and other caustics. They attack the cobalt binder in the carbide and can lead to carbide failure (translates to tiny missiles of carbide at 100+ mph). Also, Freud and some other brands of blades have a tri-metal brazing foil that uses copper alloy for a cushioning layer. The copper can also be affected by these cleaners (translates to larger missiles of carbide). We recommend soaking overnight in kerosene in a vented container and using a stiff nylon bristle brush to clean. Teflon coated plates will clean up with a soapy cloth (except for the teeth as mentioned earlier). There are commercial blade cleaning products that are not caustic but we don't officially sanction them.

The manufacturers of Simple Green recommend NOT USING their product for carbide tool cleaning. Freud recommends using kerosene.

Charles M.
Freud, Inc."

Lowes has razor blades for $5.98/100 - no shipping if there's a store near you:

http://www.lowes.com/pd_155134-995-3411 ... r%2Bblades

Very interesting.

Cobalt should be safe in Caustic solutions. KOH is sometimes used in refining cobalt to remove silicates.
Copper is another story and can be readily attacked by caustic solutions. I was not aware that it was used in bonding the teeth.

I guess I'll restrict the use of Oven Cleaner and Drano to cleaning sanding belts and aging Mahogany. (or opening drains and cleaning ovens)

Thanks for the info !

-jd

I get drum sander rolls from Online Industrial Supply, and have been happy with longevity:

http://www.onlineindustrialsupply.com/3indrsaro.html

I generally use their flat sheet stuff too.

_________________
Jim Kirby
kirby@udel.edu