Great News for end grain cutting board makers!
I may not be the first to discover this, but I did learn this on my own, and I am exited about it, I'll start from the beginning,
I am sure that many of you that build end grain cutting boards have the same problem, sanding the boards after the glue up, I use my G1066 drum sander, (which I just upgraded with the kit to change the drums to Hook and Loop,) the problem has been that after leveling the CB, deep scratches are left behind that takes forever to sand out, I use 80 grit on the first drum, and 100 grit on the second drum, then I go to my ROS, and switch to 40 grit, then step up to each grit until the CB is as smooth as I want it, usually 150 or 220 grit.
today I started out sanding a fresh glued up CB, then started with my ROS and 40 grit, after about 45 min I still had a few scratches showing, about to change to a new disk, I thought I would try spritzing the CB lightly with water, waiting until there was no standing water on the CB, I started sanding again, after a couple of minutes the scratches were gone, thinking I may have just got lucky, I turned the CB over and sprayed water on the other side, giving it a couple of minutes so as not to have any standing water, I started sanding again, with the same old disk, after 3 or 4 min a lot of the scratches were gone, then putting on a new disk and respraying with water I sanded some more, in about 5 min all of the heavy scratches were gone, now I can start changing grits and finish the job much sooner, what a time saver.
I guess the water softens the fibers enough that the sander cuts them off much quicker.
I hope that some of you try this and see for yourself how well this works.
I was getting to the point where I dreaded starting a new end grain CB.
some of you may already know this, but I just found out and wanted to share this with all of you.
btw, changing to the Hook and Loop was a great idea, so much easier to change sandpaper now.
I may not be the first to discover this, but I did learn this on my own, and I am exited about it, I'll start from the beginning,
I am sure that many of you that build end grain cutting boards have the same problem, sanding the boards after the glue up, I use my G1066 drum sander, (which I just upgraded with the kit to change the drums to Hook and Loop,) the problem has been that after leveling the CB, deep scratches are left behind that takes forever to sand out, I use 80 grit on the first drum, and 100 grit on the second drum, then I go to my ROS, and switch to 40 grit, then step up to each grit until the CB is as smooth as I want it, usually 150 or 220 grit.
today I started out sanding a fresh glued up CB, then started with my ROS and 40 grit, after about 45 min I still had a few scratches showing, about to change to a new disk, I thought I would try spritzing the CB lightly with water, waiting until there was no standing water on the CB, I started sanding again, after a couple of minutes the scratches were gone, thinking I may have just got lucky, I turned the CB over and sprayed water on the other side, giving it a couple of minutes so as not to have any standing water, I started sanding again, with the same old disk, after 3 or 4 min a lot of the scratches were gone, then putting on a new disk and respraying with water I sanded some more, in about 5 min all of the heavy scratches were gone, now I can start changing grits and finish the job much sooner, what a time saver.
I guess the water softens the fibers enough that the sander cuts them off much quicker.
I hope that some of you try this and see for yourself how well this works.
I was getting to the point where I dreaded starting a new end grain CB.
some of you may already know this, but I just found out and wanted to share this with all of you.
btw, changing to the Hook and Loop was a great idea, so much easier to change sandpaper now.