If you desire for perfection in your wood working projects, just grab up some good sandpapers. Sandpaper adds that glossy wow factor to your wood carving projects.

Sandpaper is typically a paper item that is abrasive on one side and the other side is smooth. You hold the sandpaper from the smooth surface and rub from the abrasive side for making rough surface smooth and shiny.

Sandpapers come in various grits or grades. Having proper knowledge of how to use sandpaper and selecting appropriate sandpaper make your work quiet easier and fast.

Why Should I Use Sandpaper?

Sandpaper can be used for many reasons in woodworking projects:

  • You can use Sandpaper for sharpening woodcarving tools like wood chisels, knives, gouges, planer blades, block planer blades that require honing and sharpening from time to time.
  • Sharpening woodcarving knives with sandpaper is a cost effective way of making your tools usable again. Use 200 – 400 grit sandpaper for sharpening a totally dull or damaged knife as it removes lots of metal and the 800 – 2000 grit sandpaper creates a finer, sharper and shinier edge.
  • Sandpapers can remove the mill marks caused by woodworking machines during cutting.
  • Sanding also removes unwanted considerable amount of wood from the surface or the angles of the wood.
  • Sanding with sandpaper can also be used for treating dents or grooves caused by sudden dropping of tools.
  • There is a close relation between sanding and staining. The even effect of staining is obtained only when the wood is nicely sanded. Otherwise, you may observe some light and dark patches in wood after staining. This happens because some part of unpolished wood absorbs more stain than other parts so these appear darker in colour compared to other areas of wood. So, if you plan to stain your project, make sure you polish evenly with sandpaper along the grain of the wood all over the project.

Understanding The Grits of Sandpaper

The roughness or smoothness of any sandpaper is indicated by a number that is printed on the backside of sandpaper. This number is known as the Grit of sandpaper.

As the number increases, the smoothness of the sandpaper also increases. Low numbered sandpapers have bigger and rougher grits whereas the high numbered sandpapers are finer and have smaller grits.

Choosing right grit sandpaper is the most important deciding factor in obtaining the desired result. You cannot remove the roughness of wood with finer high numbered grit sandpaper. Similarly, polishing the wood with low numbered rough sandpaper will not produce the required result.

How to Select Correct Sandpaper?

Different grit sandpapers are used to perform different types of task. Knowing which type to use will make you life easier and increase the quality of your output. Here, we are discussing general information about the grit of the sandpapers according to our experience.

You may further know which grit sandpaper works best for the type of wood you want to work with for your project with experience.

  • P16 – P30 grit sandpaper is used for cleaning very rough unfinished wood.
  • P36 – P60 grit sandpaper is used for removing bumps in the wood, removing old paint or finishes, rounding off rough edges and for smoothing rough lumber.
  • P80 is the starting grit for hardwood. These sandpapers are used for removing shallow scratches and saw blade burns.

P120 is the starting grit for softwood. These sandpapers are generally used for sanding and preparing softwood for polyurethane and enamel paints.

P220 grit sandpaper is used for 2nd and 3rd level of sanding and preparing the wood for staining.

  • P320 grit is used for 3rd and 4th level of sanding for wet sanding.
  • P400 is also known as final level finishing grit. These sandpapers are used for smoothing up the top coats.
  • P600+ grit sandpapers have a heavy paper on its backside. These are generally used for preparing the wood for polishing and for fine wet sanding.

P800-P2000 grit sandpapers are used for sharpening woodworking tools like old knives, chisels and other tools.

  • P4000 grit sandpaper is used if you want to make your blade extremely sharp.

Small inexpensive sandpaper for wood carving can be such a great versatile utility in your workshop!