Formax Satin Glo vs. Liquid Abrasive Sandpaper

[Craig Nadler]

Who's used these products and can tell me how they compare for finishing armour. I've tried the Satin Glo and find that it makes a mess. The Liquid Abrasive Sandpaper applied to a buffering wheel sounds a lot cleaner.

[wcallen]

I have used both.

We used SatinGlo back when Aaron and I worked together.
Tom uses the liquid sandpaper, so that is what I "borrow" when I am doing work now.

They are different, but probably the first thing is to say how they are different from normal buffing compound.

I expect if you are getting "a mess" from SatinGlo you are trying to use it like buffing compound. It makes a huge mess that way.

The way to use it is to apply a thick layer onto the wheel, usually while it is running, often we would turn the buffer off during this to really cake a little more on. Then take the wheel off and let it dry. If you don't do this, you just throw gooey stuff all over the place. If you do let it dry, you get a good wheel that will cut for a while. We ran between 3 and 4 sets of wheels and the first one will be ready by the time you have used the other ones.

The liquid sandpaper is similar, but more aggressive. And it takes longer to dry. Normal dry, a few hours at least. You can speed it up with a very low temp on the kitchen oven.

We tend to "break" the liquid sandpaper wheels to start - if you don't they tend to be bumpy and they can actually cut grooves.

We used PB-80 as a pretty much general purpose SatinGlo. It was used to do "brushed" finish on the cheaper stuff and used as the bridge between disks and buffing for smoother stuff.

Tom uses a whole series of the liquid sandpapers to get from disk to buff. I don't remember exactly, and sometimes I think it varies based on what is cheap, but 120, 180, 220, 320 is something like the series. We do run some 80 as well, but it can cut a lot. Esp. when new.

I have been thinking about getting some more SatinGlo to play with. I just haven't done it.

Oh, and I think both work better on a 1725 than a 3450 buffer. And we tended to use 8-10" wheels.

Wade

[wcallen]

How about this - what do you want the product to do? I can probably lead you one way or the other depending on what your goal is.

Wade

[Craig Nadler]

My 1st goal is to avoid using an angle grinder at all. They can be very hard on the nerves in your hands. A few days ago I received the Grizzly sander buffer combo that I ordered.

I like the satin finish that the 600 grit satin glo gives you. I've only just started using the Formax satin glo so it looks like I need to get the hang of using it.

Have you used the 60 grit Satin Glo? I'm hoping to use that for a quick brush finish on heat treated splints.

[Craig Nadler]

The 1050 spring steel armour that I make is blackened with linseed oil. It's for super light weight ACL/BotN tournament armour where the speed and endurance of the competitors is key.

The polished armour that I'm making is heat treated 410 stainless steel. It's geared towards ACL/BotN practices, demos, and group combat where durability is much more important.

[white mountain armoury]

I always used paper on an expanding wheel, 80/120/150/180/220 then finished with emery rouge on a treated sisal wheel.
I have serious issues with vibrating machinery it contributed to my surgery, and I still have issues now, but have zero issues when finishing metal pieces with the method above.
You can check my site for an idea as to what the finish looks like.

[wcallen]

We used the 80 grit SatinGlo. I don't know why we picked it, probably because the local dealer had some.

It can be used effectively to put a scratch finish on some pretty rough stuff. It isn't good at removing hammer marks. When I did stuff with rawhide mallets we would go straight to the SatinGlo from there.

Actually neither the SatinGlo nor the liquid sandpaper is very good at really taking hammer marks out, the flexibility of the backing wheel generally allows it to float over the surface and round things, clean and scratch. But it doesn't work like a belt sander.

Now that I have a Grizzly belt sander I really would like to try the SatinGlo again to see if I can reasonably go straight from the belt to a usable matte finish.

Tom seems to be happy with the liquid sandpaper. I find that I get different quality finishes in ways I don't like based on what stage of breakdown the wheel is in. Sometimes it really cuts (I could almost carve a flute in with the rougher stuff), sometimes it does almost nothing and sometimes it gets fly-away bits of grit and I get a little pitting. That isn't a big deal unless you want to buff from there.

The SatinGlo changes as it wears too, but not as aggressively. If you want to use it as your final finish, you will need to get pretty careful to learn an even, smooth pattern of movement over the buffer to get just the right finish. If you don't do that you can get streaky results.

Wade

[Mac]

With any abrasive product, a lot depends upon presentation. Either of these products will make a satin finish if they are applied to a soft wheel. Conversely, either one will cut like a file if applied to a hard wheel. Even tallow based black emery compound will cur with surprising aggressiveness when applied to a solid wooden wheel.

The down side of applying them with a soft wheel is the tendency to produce a finish which is "galled" or "orange pealed", rather than scratched. This appears to be caused by the initial contact with the wheel being more in the nature of impact than abrasion. You can make a big difference here by applying the work to the wheel in such a way that the "last thing the work sees" is the trailing edge of the abrasive, rather than the leading edge.

Before I was obliged to retire, I was experimenting quite a bit with wheels made of MDF, with leather or felt rims. I found that one of the greatest problems with any compound is applying it evenly. If the compound presents smooth even surface to the work, the resulting scratches will be proportional to the grit size. If, on the other hand, there are drips, knots, hills, or other inequities on the surface, the high spots will carve deeply into the work. Badly applied 400 grit can dig trenches like 60 grit until the high spots and "bad boys" are worn away.

One way of "taming" the surface of a setup wheel is to smooth it with a diamond dresser before applying it to the work. These can be had from any machine tool suppler. Holtzapfel tells us to "boulder" the wheel by letting it run against a "flint nodule about the size of a goose egg". These can be had from the folks who supply knappers, but good luck getting them to understand how big a goose egg is. Either of these procedures will work, but they both take a lot away from the initial "bite" of the wheel. In some applications, that is a problem, but for the most part, it is a "feature". It maximizes the length of time that a wheel will produce the same results, by removing the break in period.

I could crack-on alarmingly about this stuff, but I will call it quits for now...

Mac