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With that, you thickness coco, African Blackwood, you name it. It NEVER clogs. It’s is loud though. Lol

You should try the Abranet. I’ve used it on a bunch of coco and EIR lately. No clogging as well and the surface is nice and smooth.


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My brain hurts...

Can you just lay it out and cut it with a utility knife?

.....

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Sorry.

Wow. You make that sound pretty hard to ignore. Next time I need abrasives I'll give it a try. Thanks.

I tried to reply, Tapatalk ate it.

I’m sure you could, no problem. I’m just super lazy.

I should point out that the only need to cut it is because the Jet sanders have the attachment points on opposing sides of the drum and I couldn’t get the math to work out at 2 3/4”. At 2 1/2” I just taper just like 3”.

If your sander attachment points are on the same side of the drum (opposite end of course) then you should be able to just taper like normal with the 2 3/4”.





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Abranet is pretty expensive. Whats the life like? And does it clog on oily woods?

Lifespan has been really good so far. I can only say I’ve had the same paper on there for the last 5 B&S sets which include two coco. No issues with oils. Mark Roberts builds a lot with coco too I believe. He talks about it here:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?t=3149s&v=EDd8aWRnjKc

He talks about Abranet around 11 minutes in.

I think it can generally stay cooler which helps a lot on my sander when doing sides because I can’t angle the side very much to keep from overheating in a specific spot.




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I was so excited to get a drum sander until I actually got one - very slow compared to a planer, the joy of cleaning and changing abrasive, & deep grooves from 80 or 100 grit (meaning more time to sand or scrape out compared to the ripples from a planer) but no tear out compared to a planer. I guess there is no free lunch.

I use Abranet on my ROS & love it compared to conventional sandpaper. I'm going to look at using it on the drum, especially with oily woods.

One thing I've learned on the drum is to skew the grain to the feed direction as much as possible when thicknessing.

Just my $0.02

Kevin Looker

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Kevin, I hear you. I’ve never owned a planer until this weekend. My favorite woods, coco, African Blackwood, etc, destroyed my drum paper. I posted here endlessly about it. Then, someone suggested Klingspor 36 blue. Granted, scratches can be a problem if you don’t get the feed angle thing or pressure thing. But, get beyond that, it is a very cost effective way to thickness once you learn it. I’m never going to pass thin, figured, expensive wood through a planer. Never. I have never destroyed a set. But I did have to learn how to use that 36 grit paper. Love it.

I've been too apprehensive to attempt planing very thin wood in my planer. Maybe I'd be more confident with a more modern machine (helical head?) but in the machine I have, I haven't tried anything below 3/16". I've been hoping to go the last step with the drum sander. Sounds like I have a learning curve to climb.

Is this the right Abranet product?

https://smile.amazon.com/Mirka-9A-570-1 ... t+roll+120

Correct. What drum sander do you have?

I don’t have a lot of experience with different drum sanders and how they provide attachment for the paper, but I gather they are all fairly similar since you can buy pre-cut paper that works for several different males and models. I only have experience with mine which is a Jet 16-32.

What would be worthwhile is to take a roll of your brown paper (which you should have for bending sides anyway ) and cut a long strip of it at 2 3/4” and experiment with trying different cuts to see what works. If I followed the manual for my 16-32 the 2 3/4” didn’t work for me. After some math and experimentation I landed on either a) putting a 1/4” gap between each pass around the drum, which made it effectively like the 3” roll or b) cut the roll down to 2 1/2” and follow the rest of the steps in the manual just like it was a 3”.

I can’t be sure because I don’t have anything to compare it to, but if your sander is like mine you may need to trim the Abranet or work out a way that it will work for you. But the results are really good I’ve found. I still take light passes just like paper but I find the motor doesn’t bog down like it could sometimes with regular paper.

There might be some math to save the day but my understanding is the taper is basically matching the diameter of the drum. So you can’t mess with that too much, so it comes down to the width of the Abranet.

FWIW, they also sell it in 4 1/2”. You could cut it to 3” just like normal paper and still have a 1 1/2” strip that could be actually useful. The 1/4” that I’m cutting off the 2 3/4” is really just trash at that point.

Anyway, hope some of that helps!

Brad




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I just finished a maple guitar and experienced no burning with 120.... I fed it through at a decent pace though...
this is with a jet 10-20 if that makes a difference at all


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I have a Byrd helical head on my planer. I've had good luck using double stick tape & a carrier board, except for figured Koa.

I'm not getting rid of my sander. I think it's a necessary evil. Hesh brought up a good point with dust extraction. I do think if I had better extraction, it would reduce dust build up, keep things cooler, and prolong abrasive life especially with oily woods.

Just to clarify, I'm not recommending anyone put a precious piece of wood through any planer, with any type of head. I have a pretty good feel for what my machine can & can't do, but I learned a lesson with figured Koa, luckily just a random piece, not part of a back & side set.

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I put a piece of Zebra wood on a sled through my Dewalt planer when I was first starting to get into building. It was like a dozen angry porcupines were in there. Some of the shards literally stuck in the wall.

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I do the same, buddy. For the same reason.

I am still chuckling.

Somebody pinch me!

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I should work for Mirka’s marketing department.

I was chatting with Colin in PM and it was mentioned that Abranet might stretch and loosen over time. I haven’t seen this personally, but I also have been swapping out the Abranet for lower grit paper every so often based on the work that I’m doing. Re-wrapping the Abranet I may be keeping it from getting too loose? I have some 60 and 80 grit pre-cut paper rolls that I use for non instrument stuff.

So if you experiment with Abranet watch out for it loosening over time. Given it’s construction I can see how it might stretch over time.

Hope that helps!
Brad


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My sander is a Performax 22-44. The drum is 22" long x 16" circumference. Back of the envelope calculation says the strips at 2-3/4" wide need to be ~140" long. The Abranet roll is 10 yards long, yielding 2 full wraps with about 80" left over. I don't know what use I could get out of that much narrow abrasive. Kind of inefficient.

I think at 4-1/2" wide the strips would need to be 90" long. Amazon also has a roll that's 4-1/2" x 900". Coincidentally exactly 10 wraps. Much better, but also a much bigger investment - $118 for the roll. I think I'll use up my sandpaper first.

I don't understand why you had to cut down the 2-3/4" roll. Don't you just have to make the diagonal cut at the end long enough to go once all the way around the drum? I would have thought you could just lay the end of an old 3" strip on top of the new 2-3/4" strip with the outboard edges aligned and cut to match. You'd have to wrap the new strip around the drum to get the right length and then just do the same on the other end. But I haven't tried it. Maybe I'm missing something here.

My brother used to be their VP of marketing for the eastern US. Maybe he could get you a gig.

That's really good to know. Thanks.