My new 80 grit gouge.

[Bob Bergstrom]

A flat work friend of mine showed me this for my drum sander. It is called Abranet Heavy Duty. He has run over a 1,000 board feet of white oak through his 22 x 44 drum sander on one strip of this stuff. It is thick and has a cling on backing to it. The picture below show a strip ready for the drum sander and a couple of disks that go on my power sander. It is incredibly strong and very aggressive. I used a strip of it to cure some tear out on a spalted maple bowl that was a little too punky. I put a strip of it to the bowl and with minutes 98% of the tear was gone and the bowl was still round. It may not bend as well as some paper inside a bowl but the 2" piece worked quite well. It comes in rolls 10 meters long and 2 3/4" wide or 4 1/2" wide (made 3 strips for the sander and some left over). The 2 3/4" was $40 on line. I got mine here but had to pay shipping. http://beavertools.com/index.php/mirka/mirka-specialty-abrasives-1/mirka-abranet-2/mirka-abranet-2/hd5bg001803r-mirka-abranet-heavy-duty-2-3-4-in-x-33-ft-mesh-grip-roll-80g-qty-2.html


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[Justin Stephen]

I use Abranet pieces (80grit - 600grit) to hand sand most of my pieces. The stuff works very well.

[Nathan Hawkes]

WOW! Thanks for the link. Seems like a good product for really rough sanding. I use 400-800 grit for final sanding of darker woods or really close grained woods that show scratches, i.e. walnut and curly maple, when I'm using an oil finish. Abranet is good stuff. The HD looks pretty SERIOUS.

[Dan Forman]

Does anyone know if there is any difference in the actual abrasive part of the "HD" variant, or is it just a heavier duty backing?

Dan

[Bob Bergstrom]

I forgot to mention it only comes in 40, 60, and 80 grit. I am told the lower two are for more or less planing wood down. I know how much the #80 removes and the other would test some horsepower if asked to take a lot of wood. The #80 works well with my 22 x 44 Perfomrax.

[Bill Wyko]

That'll definitely be on my to get list. I still have about 1/2 a box of the jet stuff but next time I'll give it a try. Thanks for the link.