freshmaker
Member
Hi folks,
I'm hoping to tap into your collective and generous knowledge to try and tackle my finishing problem. I've been searching around reading various threads about sanding and buffing pens, but haven't found anyone encountering the same problem when sanding/polishing resin. Please redirect me if I've missed a thread you know of that addresses this! (I was hoping this thread (Tips and tricks for high gloss with Alumilite Clear Slow blanks) would have an answer based on the title, and while there is some good stuff there, it's mostly focused on the shine, and not removing scratches).
Here's the main issue: After sanding down to 12000 grit micro mesh (or 22,000 with Zona), and polishing with SPB Magic Juice, I get an amazing glossy shiny finish, but when I shine a light on the surface, I can still see sanding scratches (Because I wasn't able to actually sand down to the aforementioned grits).
Some additional points I've found along the way:
- I looked at the "Finishing" section of the Library and didn't see anything there (I only just found out there was a Library, very very useful!)
- I found Jon Rista's sanding guide which is a treasure trove of information, though also seems geared more towards wood (he does clarify some differences when sanding resin which is helpful) and I have adopted many of the steps he outlines.
- Based on some posts I've read, many people have also mentioned that Alumilite is a polyurethane, and thus is softer than some other types of resin which makes it harder to get rid of sanding marks, which I didn't know. This might be the biggest reason for being unable to get a glass-like finish.
If you're still reading, for some context on where I'm coming from, I started making kitless (or custom) pens about 1.5 years ago; not very long in the grand scheme of things, and it's so fun it's basically the only thing I think about anymore! I love the creative process of making my own blanks as well, so as mentioned, I'm using Alumilite Clear Slow. Reason being I tried a bunch of other epoxy products and none of them threaded as nicely as the Alumilite. I'm using carbide tools (would love to use a skew but it 'bounces' in the middle of a pen blank where there's less support than at the lathe centers - I'm sure I'm doing something wrong) so the result is quite smooth already. I started out dry sanding from 400/600 grit and then using the micro mesh pads, wet sanding from 1500 to 12000. But this always left radial scratches. I then learned that alternating between sanding laterally by turning the lathe with your hand, and sanding with the lathe spinning, will allow you to 'see' that you've removed all previous scratches before moving on. Around the time I learned this, I also moved onto Zona paper to give that a go, and have used that for quite a while with good results. But not great results. Someone asked me to make a plain solid burgundy pen, and it's so easy to see every single scratch in the right light. I've been spending hours and days and weeks trying to polish this thing to a level I'm proud of. The problem with both micro mesh and Zona paper is that I hit a certain level and then can't completely remove the previous grit. With Zona paper, I only just realized that the jump from light blue (1800) to pink (8000) is quite large, not following the rule of using no larger than 50% of the previous grit, so it's no wonder I've been unable to completely remove the 1800 scratches. After this realization, I went back to micro mesh, since they have many intermediary grits, but once I get up to 6000 grit, I still can't remove the previous 4000 grit scratches completely, even after 30 minutes of sanding with 6000 (I tried sanding laterally with 4000 until all previous sanding marks were gone, so I could sand with the lathe spinning at about 800 rpm using 6000 grit, but that didn't work. I tried sanding with 6000 at 2000 rpm using a spray bottle to keep it cool, and even that didn't do the trick).
One night I had what I thought to be a brilliant idea to use my work sharp belt sanding tool grinder to sand laterally as a way to brute force remove any previous grit, and it worked in the sense that it was faster than sanding laterally by hand, but once getting to the higher grits it wasn't removing the previous ones - though in this case I didn't have belts that followed the 50% rule. So then I had an idea to attach sandpaper to my drill, which apparently is something I've since discovered a lot of people do, and there's even kits with velcro pads you can attach to a disc you chuck up in the drill. I tried this with an Amazon kit that had 1200 / 2000 / 3000 / 5000 / 10,000 grit pads, but still no luck.
I continued research and discovered some people use something called passive sanders. Rather than rely on a drill/dremel tool to spin the sandpaper, you allow the lathe to spin the blank which then spins the sandpaper disc (just attached to a handle via ball bearing) so I've tried this as well (alternating between the passive sander and just sanding on the lathe so I can see the difference in the line patterns to know when the previous grit is removed) but again can't remove the previous grit around the 6000 mark (rather than use the Amazon pads, I bought some real micro mesh Velcro pads that I cut into 2" circles and attached to the passive sander).
I've attached some pictures of the results of using the passive sander, going up to 12,000, but not being able to remove all of the previous grits from around 6000. I used the Magic Juice on it to see what would happen, and as you can see it's shiny, but the sanding lines are still visible. My wife thinks it looks great, but I think anyone who really cares about getting a quality finish will know it could be better - so I'm hoping someone can help me figure out how to make it better!
I'm terribly sorry for the wordy post. I just don't know how else to communicate all the things I've tried.
Have a great day!
I'm hoping to tap into your collective and generous knowledge to try and tackle my finishing problem. I've been searching around reading various threads about sanding and buffing pens, but haven't found anyone encountering the same problem when sanding/polishing resin. Please redirect me if I've missed a thread you know of that addresses this! (I was hoping this thread (Tips and tricks for high gloss with Alumilite Clear Slow blanks) would have an answer based on the title, and while there is some good stuff there, it's mostly focused on the shine, and not removing scratches).
Here's the main issue: After sanding down to 12000 grit micro mesh (or 22,000 with Zona), and polishing with SPB Magic Juice, I get an amazing glossy shiny finish, but when I shine a light on the surface, I can still see sanding scratches (Because I wasn't able to actually sand down to the aforementioned grits).
Some additional points I've found along the way:
- I looked at the "Finishing" section of the Library and didn't see anything there (I only just found out there was a Library, very very useful!)
- I found Jon Rista's sanding guide which is a treasure trove of information, though also seems geared more towards wood (he does clarify some differences when sanding resin which is helpful) and I have adopted many of the steps he outlines.
- Based on some posts I've read, many people have also mentioned that Alumilite is a polyurethane, and thus is softer than some other types of resin which makes it harder to get rid of sanding marks, which I didn't know. This might be the biggest reason for being unable to get a glass-like finish.
If you're still reading, for some context on where I'm coming from, I started making kitless (or custom) pens about 1.5 years ago; not very long in the grand scheme of things, and it's so fun it's basically the only thing I think about anymore! I love the creative process of making my own blanks as well, so as mentioned, I'm using Alumilite Clear Slow. Reason being I tried a bunch of other epoxy products and none of them threaded as nicely as the Alumilite. I'm using carbide tools (would love to use a skew but it 'bounces' in the middle of a pen blank where there's less support than at the lathe centers - I'm sure I'm doing something wrong) so the result is quite smooth already. I started out dry sanding from 400/600 grit and then using the micro mesh pads, wet sanding from 1500 to 12000. But this always left radial scratches. I then learned that alternating between sanding laterally by turning the lathe with your hand, and sanding with the lathe spinning, will allow you to 'see' that you've removed all previous scratches before moving on. Around the time I learned this, I also moved onto Zona paper to give that a go, and have used that for quite a while with good results. But not great results. Someone asked me to make a plain solid burgundy pen, and it's so easy to see every single scratch in the right light. I've been spending hours and days and weeks trying to polish this thing to a level I'm proud of. The problem with both micro mesh and Zona paper is that I hit a certain level and then can't completely remove the previous grit. With Zona paper, I only just realized that the jump from light blue (1800) to pink (8000) is quite large, not following the rule of using no larger than 50% of the previous grit, so it's no wonder I've been unable to completely remove the 1800 scratches. After this realization, I went back to micro mesh, since they have many intermediary grits, but once I get up to 6000 grit, I still can't remove the previous 4000 grit scratches completely, even after 30 minutes of sanding with 6000 (I tried sanding laterally with 4000 until all previous sanding marks were gone, so I could sand with the lathe spinning at about 800 rpm using 6000 grit, but that didn't work. I tried sanding with 6000 at 2000 rpm using a spray bottle to keep it cool, and even that didn't do the trick).
One night I had what I thought to be a brilliant idea to use my work sharp belt sanding tool grinder to sand laterally as a way to brute force remove any previous grit, and it worked in the sense that it was faster than sanding laterally by hand, but once getting to the higher grits it wasn't removing the previous ones - though in this case I didn't have belts that followed the 50% rule. So then I had an idea to attach sandpaper to my drill, which apparently is something I've since discovered a lot of people do, and there's even kits with velcro pads you can attach to a disc you chuck up in the drill. I tried this with an Amazon kit that had 1200 / 2000 / 3000 / 5000 / 10,000 grit pads, but still no luck.
I continued research and discovered some people use something called passive sanders. Rather than rely on a drill/dremel tool to spin the sandpaper, you allow the lathe to spin the blank which then spins the sandpaper disc (just attached to a handle via ball bearing) so I've tried this as well (alternating between the passive sander and just sanding on the lathe so I can see the difference in the line patterns to know when the previous grit is removed) but again can't remove the previous grit around the 6000 mark (rather than use the Amazon pads, I bought some real micro mesh Velcro pads that I cut into 2" circles and attached to the passive sander).
I've attached some pictures of the results of using the passive sander, going up to 12,000, but not being able to remove all of the previous grits from around 6000. I used the Magic Juice on it to see what would happen, and as you can see it's shiny, but the sanding lines are still visible. My wife thinks it looks great, but I think anyone who really cares about getting a quality finish will know it could be better - so I'm hoping someone can help me figure out how to make it better!
I'm terribly sorry for the wordy post. I just don't know how else to communicate all the things I've tried.
Have a great day!
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