Capillary action with sand paper on steel or aluminum?

[Sean Rainaldi]

Does capillary action work well for wet sand paper when wet and on a smooth steel and or aluminum plate - for holding down paper while honing? Or is it just mainly work able on granite?

I guess I am wondering how smooth does the surface need to be in order for capillary action to work...

[Peter Pedisich]

I use paper on granite and the paper always curls up at the edges when wet, so I purchased some self-adhesive paper from Rockler.
The paper curling gets very annoying.
Sorry I do not have a specific anser to your question.

Pete

[Sean Rainaldi]

Thanks much,

does that adhesive leave much sticky film on your granite?

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

Sometimes the capillary action worked for me, sometimes it led to the paper curling like Peter said. Sometimes I curl the paper away from the abrasive, sort of the same way you curl ribbon for christmas presents. I like to think it helped, but I could be crazy. Sometimes I used to just use a spring clamp to hold the paper at the far end, since I pretty much only apply pressure on the pull stroke to keep from accidently slicing up the paper.

I used to pre-soak my wet/dry paper before using it to wet sand finish coats on guitars - I wonder if that would help?

When I was sharpening mostly on sandpaper, I used spray adhesive to hold my sheets down. The best stuff I had was from the craft store for holding down stencils when doing country-style stenciling on your walls. Was firm enough to keep things in place, but removed a little easier and cleaner than when using Super 77. Either way, any adhesive left on the granite, I sprayed it with "Goo Gone" brand cleaner/adhesive remover, then let it soak for a little while, then scraped it off with a plastic scraper. Then a little soapy water to clean the surface.