Best Blocks for Demanding Sanding

hi thanks for stopping by next level carpentry I'm in the middle of this custom box Newell project and while I was making these caps with a double dome on them I was using my favorite sanding block to tree off the curves after making these post caps with a special router fixture that you'll see in another video and I got to thinking that I generally take these sanding blocks for granted but they're invaluable for certain applications in the shop and I assumed that there'd be a hundred video showing how to make this sanding block that holds a durable three by twenty one inch sanding belt firmly to a block of wood with a simple wedge to keep it in place but a quick search told me that no one's really covered the process for making these simple and effective sanding blocks there's some similar ones but I like the fact that a simple wedge shoved into one end of this sanding block holds the belt firm and tight and snug to the block of wood which allows for precision sanding on custom parts like this and it's also useful for flattening parts where an orbital sander or a smaller handheld sander tends to tip and round off the curves so if you want to see the process I use for making a batch of the best blocks for demanding sanding stick around and I'll show you how [Music] it doesn't take a lot of material to build the best blocks for demanding sanding and it's a great opportunity to use up nice-looking scraps you have laying around the shop just looking for a purpose in life and that's the case with this Mesquite it was leftover from a project I had so I took random scraps flat in the face and then ran them through the thickness planer and they ended up 1/32 over 3/4 of an inch thick somewhere three-quarters to thirteen sixteenths makes for a nice handy size of a block you can make any thickness you want by compensating with steps later on but like I said this is a fat 3/4 of an inch that's a nice thickness I also planed up a piece of a contrasting color wood for the belt tightening wedges I think a contrasting color is nice that's not essential but the important thing is that it's the same thickness as the sanding blocks and then it's nice to have it big enough so that the wedges can be cut extra long fit for snugness and then trim to length rather than starting off with something that's exactly three and a half inches in heaven to make that work so I'll take the pieces that are milled to the same thickness straighten an edge and then rip them and plane them again so they end up at exactly three inches wide with planed edges on both sides [Music] once you've got all the pieces cut to the exact three inch width just rough cut a square end on each of the pieces for the rounded end of the sanding block the main body of the block ends up about nine inches so I like to go ten ten and a half eleven inches on the rough square cut and with the material I'm using I'm basically just making sure I'm cutting off the bad spots using the prettiest section of the wood and in the case of these longer pieces cutting them so that I can get two blocks out of each one I'm just gonna cut these at 11 and because this has a pretty end on it I'm going to use that for the square end on this guy this will be close enough here and with the rough cuts laid out I can tape these together for gang cutting these ends are staggered because this particular one needs a little more cut off at this stage with all the pieces tape and gang cut with the square end it's time to cut an angle on the other end and the angle gives the best wedging action for holding the sanding belts tight on the block three degrees is an ideal angle and for a decent sized wedge use nine and and eight inches for the long point of that angle right on the edge of the piece of tape don't you know it and then I'll mark that three degree line for cutting on the miter box and a little variance here isn't the end of the world because there's actually some variation in the precise length of a belt and how tight they'll wrap on the block that can be made up with the taper of the wedge and then also by adding this slip layer on the angle later and this piece can be thicker or thinner as can the wedges so 9 + + 8 is a good starting point you set that guy to three degrees some of that designer firewood I talked about before that mesquite some fantastic wood with the pieces gang cut to the exact same size just break open the bundles and using a 3/8 round over bit route both phases of the square end I put marks on the end of these blocks so I don't round over the angled end instead set the bit carefully to make as accurate of a half round end profile as you can get [Music] this is pretty hardwood and a kind of a tired bit I've got a little burn on this side but that's alright I can clean that up with guess what a sanding block repeat that process for the square ends of all the blanks once the square ends of all the blocks have the bullnose profile on them the next step is to add a thin layer of wood across the three degree cut end the wedge action on that three degree slope is so strong that I found that the wedge actually sticks tighter than it needs to when it's laying on this end grain this is a particularly hard wood so maybe it's not such an issue but because of past experience I'm gonna go ahead and add a thin layer of straight grain wood on the end so I'll cut two strips of a fat sixteenth of an inch off of this contrasting wood block alright it's smooth and I'm just marking the plane surface and this is a perfect case for using an expendable favorite push stick made a quarter each melamine for pushing these two thin strips through as luck would have it I'll be able to get six pieces out of these two strips we've got the pencil mark ie plain side towards the fence I'm just gonna bump these guys over here to mark and I'll cut that at 3 degrees on the miter box they won't be exact length I'll trim the ends off after they're glued swing this three degrees the other direction it's not that it's all that important but it'll help just a little bit use a lot of things glue these pieces on from wood glue to speed tape by fast cat I'm just going to use a little bit of CA glue with activator and we'll just spray the back faces of all these pieces I eat the side without a pencil mark on with the activator so they're all done and line that piece up on the fence and use the gorilla super glue for this part I want a nice sturdy bond there so making sure I get it out to the edges even though a couple dabs will more than do the job the RIP fence is locked in position everything's lined up and I just need to get the ends closed I can trim them after it's on the block so I'm just going to press that guy on and give it a good push count to ten think about happy thoughts and it's done nothing to it stuck like crazy and I could quickly clean up the ends pull cut saw in the vise and if I just had a sanding block I could clean up those ends and that's that as I'm trimming up the last one of these I'll go ahead and admit how silly it was to worry about trimming those at three degrees I thought it was gonna matter but this is so quick and easy it was silly oh and working on this process kind of makes me think it's a chicken-and-egg sort of deal because how do you make a sanding block unless you have a sanding block I'll use a sharpened putty knife cluding a cabinet scraper to clean up a little bit of that CA glue on there ultimately I'll sand these blocks down there's a random orbit sander of all things about getting that little bit of CA glue oozing off of there at this stage of the game we'll just make that sanding process easier later gets everything flushed up in short order we're using the random orbit sander which just come up the paper for a little bit and are on the edge off and I want that edge to be nice and crisp and sharp on the finished product with those thin cross grain strips all glued on the blocks the next and last real step for these is to make the wedges that hold the belts tight to the sanding block they have to have a matching three degree taper to them to pull the belt tight and even and working with small pieces deserves your utmost respect because they tend to require you to have fingers closer to spinning blades that bite so I'll show you the process I use for making these wedges while minimizing the risk and I'll start out with this contrasting wood block it's plain the same thickness as all the sanding blocks but right now it's longer than it is wide and I need it to be wider than it is long so I'm just going to cut it about in half and it's important that the edges are parallel and the ends are square and [Music] [Applause] this is Hall go about making the piece wider than it is long there's nothing magic about these dimensions or the way I'm going about this if you have a bigger piece of scrap you can go about it all different if you already have a board that's wide enough you don't have to go through this step the important part is to end up with the long grain on the piece that you're making wedges out of needs to be extra long and make plenty of it so you can hang on to these pieces the exact taper will be the next step I put plenty of glue on that joint I don't want that coming apart in the next few steps here by spring activator on that glue that spilled onto the table it just turns into plastic and peels right off so now I have this nice sturdy block has a flat edge to square sides and the lengths of the pieces are noticeably wider than they need to be for the wedge on the sanding blocks I switched the 3/8 inch round over a bit into this D handled router just because I'm more comfortable using it for this process then free handing it on the router table if you've got a router table set up with a fence that's definitely safer than going freehand on a router table but I'm equally comfortable with the safety of this D handled router process [Music] I've got that bit set ever-so-slightly deep so I'll back it off for the rest of these and this is where having stock that's a little thicker than 3/4 of an inch works nicely if it's a little less than 3/4 of an inch then you get a funny scene here at the corner when you get into the full roundover mode if you want with a one-inch thick piece instead of 3/4 and use the half inch router bit basically get the same result for a thicker block as well as doing the whole process to get a thinner block but what I have here now is a blank with two bull-nosed edges on it straight side at this point in the project this kind of goes from science to art for figuring out how thick this wedge needs to be all the factors up to this point the exact length of the block the thickness the radius the thickness of the little wood strip on there the size of the particular belts you're using can change this noticeably so what all's I'm gonna do is take a 100 grit belt this is fairly flexible as opposed to this gnarly thing that's stiff and hard to manage but I'll slip the belt on here and put my finger in on the short point side of that angle and then pull it kind of tight and with that set up it's looking like about three-quarter inch to the inside of that rounded curve so on the block I'll just mark 3/4 of an inch and then I'm going to actually downsize it strong sixteenth of an inch because I want the wedge to come all the way out the other side a little bit when it's nice and snug and that'll allow trimming everything else so from this shorter mark I'll extend a three degree angle line so that'll be a three degree cut line for this guinea pig wedge I'm setting the saw at three degrees which should be pretty close to that pencil mark I've got enough block over here to hang on to while this cuts been made I've got the flat edge of this block up against the fence there's a wedge and now just take that wedge and slip it in on the fat side tap it into place and that belt is really stuck on there and that's a little bit too skinny I want the wedge to stick out here a half an inch or something like that but then stop short on this side so that if I'm standing into something I don't have that wedge sticking out so the next one I'll make just a skosh wider so the taper tightens up sooner so I'll mark the skinny end on the other side of the blank and then add a little bit to it for the pencil mark let's see how that flies you can see the difference between wedge number one and wedge number two for thickness it's pretty slight but the difference on the sanding block is fairly significant because the wedge is short on this end and sticking out obviously way more on that end and this will change from belt to belt also so it's up to you to decide how long you want those wedges how snug you want them to be and where they stop when the belt is tight I use this little tack hammer to drive the wedge out see what happens when they use a stiffer belt I'm gonna go back to number one one of the baby Hills right just goes right about through and number two is a good fit so that gives you an idea of what size you want the wedges all the factors and dimensions of building the block make the most difference right at this point it's easy enough to sand this down a little bit to make the wedge narrower could always glue a thin piece on here a piece of plastic laminate or who knows what on there to make them a little bit thicker but the process of using a wide block as a blank putting the round over on it before cutting the taper is the main point I'm trying to make with this whole exercise if you're trying to get that wedge perfect so that it's flush on both sides at the same time when it's driven that's wonderful but it's probably going to be specific to one sanding belt so there's a little bit of right in there but you can see on this older sanding block the wedge stops short and that's typically that's the set up I like that way I've got a clean shot on one side doesn't really matter that this extra wedge is sticking out on the other side but if it was a problem it could be just trimmed off but then again I'm switching the belt to this older sanding block you can see that this belt is on the long side and all of a sudden the wedge behaves different to make the other wedges I need out of the same blank I'll just do the round over on these two three degree tapered sides and then use a square cut to cut the wedge to length depending how big of a batch of blocks you end up making you can start out with a wider blank for making the wedges as it is I need to cut two more wedges out of this piece and it's getting kind of small so I'm going to use my method for cutting small parts safely by spraying a bit of CA glue activator on a scrap and then adding the glue itself to the edge of my wedge stock and getting that little thing glued together before I go to the miter box to cut those three degree angles and that way I've still got as many fingers as I started out with plus two more wedges to finish up the blocks I took a quick lap around them with a sanding block of all things remove any splinters pencil marks glue residue etc the corners of the strip take a little wipe with the sandpaper to knock down the sharp edge and because of the sequence of cuts and planing I don't have much sanding to do on these and the murca Darrow's with a hundred fifty grit a Burnett disc polishes them up real nice and you absolutely cannot beat the dexterity of it Darrell's for sanding things like these small pieces and especially smoothing up the round over end of these blocks I tuned up each of the wedges by using a sharpened putty knife to remove saw marks and the sanding block to knock down the sharp edges and the Daryl's sander is agile enough that it makes sanding even a small odd shaped part like this possible for a finishing touch I stamp each block with a steel letter and number set to indicate the grit that's going to go on the block before giving each block the light coat of beeswax to keep them clean in the shop environment I fit each block with a corresponding belt grit and then found the best fit of the wedges for each belt the variance in the belt links meant that in some cases I added a couple strips of this plastic strapping that's used for bundling lumber from the lumberyard just tape those on the end of the block and then drove the wedge home that way I can cut all the wedges so they stick out the same amount on this side and so that they don't stick out at all on the other side just by scribing them with a pencil and I just marked how much needs to be cut off the other side to keep it from sticking out the block and I take out the wedge market for the grip and then trim it to length with the rounded edge against fence now pick an extra blade width off the skinny end and cut to the line on the fat so that the wedge fits nicely for this block and this belt in the future if the belt is shorter or longer I can adjust the wedge if it's enough to bother me now put a coat of beeswax on these blocks as a preservative finish it's easy to put on it's durable it'll keep grime from the shop from soaking into the blocks plus it makes them look real nice and if you've never used beeswax before it's a real treat just has a rich kind of woodworking smell to it and the process is just set it and forget it swab some on there let it soak in a little extra on the end grain and after its had a while to soak in just kind of buff it down no wax really stays on the surface it because it soaks into the wood and those wedges hold the sanding belt on here tightly enough that they won't ever slip because of putting a little bit of finish on them this is about as low tech as you can get with a finish for application but for durability and ease of application it's tough to beat I've given these parts about an hour from the wood stove that just speeds up the cure time for the beeswax soaks it into the open grain makes it pretty at this point I just buff it down to kind of even it all out it moves any excess down into the pores where the wood soaked it up a little bit more like I said before if you've never used beeswax you're in for a treat just has the fragrance of wood working back before the days of all the sophisticated chemical finishes which are wonderful in their own right but once in a while it's just nice to go back to something that's about as natural as you can get the skidmores beeswax has a few other things mixed into it I'm not sure what or why but the primary aroma is beeswax it just smells so good gives the parts a nice Sheen I ended up stamping the numbers on the back of these wedges so that the marker marks wouldn't come off with the beeswax I've gotta remember that the 50 grit and the hundred grit belts were long so I added those shims to the wedges and I don't know about you but I think I'd call that a complete set of the best blocks for demanding sanding so whether you make a whole batch of blocks or just a single sander you can think of the time you spend making these as an investment that pays off every time you have a project that requires some demanding sanding if you liked the video hit the thumbs up button it's momentum from those likes that drive this channel forward in the eyes of the YouTube algorithm and I appreciate it consider subscribing if you haven't already every time the subscriber count' takes up another thousand subscribers it just provides energy and momentum for future growth and improvement in video quality and frequency and anything you do in the way of sharing things from this channel that you find helpful or maybe even just entertaining help spread the word and provide energy for going forward I always appreciate viewer interaction through insightful and entertaining comments to these videos it's rewarding to learn when something from a video has helped somebody do something new or faster or better I'm currently working on a number of longer videos that show in depth some of the processes and methods I used for making the parts of these Box Newell's that you see in the shop during this video so I hope you'll check out those videos when I get them uploaded and in the meantime work safely and thanks for watching [Music]

Channel: Next Level Carpentry

Views: 121,104

Rating: 4.9763799 out of 5

Keywords: sanding, block, sandingblock, sand, sandpaper, paper, belt, 3x21, belt sander, sander, 3x24, best, demanding, task, project, smooth, rough, grit, 60#, 60, 80, 100, 120, 150, 180, next level carpentry, matt jackson, toolsofthetrade.net, protradecraft, fine woodworking, fine homebuilding, diy, handy, useful, fast, simple, curve, holder, shape, contour, shop, bench, workbench, vise, clamp, beeswax, finish, finishing, pattern, wedge, sweet, sawheet, favorite, my, new, cheap, inexpensive, scrap

Id: qxvfIw84i-Y

Length: 25min 25sec (1525 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 26 2018