Sanding the Inner Curves

Hey All -

Wanted to get your suggestions re. best practices in sanding the curve inner hull. Only suggestion I've received is to use an empty 2 liter coke bottle (or perhaps fill with water) and wrap 80 grit around the bottle. Anything else I can do that would work? Are there any attachments to an electrical drill that might work?

Thanks!

 

A Random orbital sander is what I use after careful scraping. I'll start with 40, or 60 grit paper
I use a chunk of foam "Pool Noodle" with various grit sand paper wrapped on it is one of my favorites .

Jim

 

Hey Jim - Great idea about the pool noodle. Now, if I can just find one in January....hmmm....

When you mention the orbital sander, you only use that for the vertical sides, right?

 

Hi RoadRunner
My approach to this is to do as much as I can by scraping as possible.That way I avoid having to do a lot of sanding.I use metal cabinet scrapers and have filed a selection of them to various curves that fit the inside of the hull well in different places.Then I finish off by sanding with large sheets of sandpaper of the kind used on a wide belt sander.That way I can cut a big piece of sandpaper to wrap around whatever bottle I put inside.
Cheers
Alick

 

Yeah finding Pool noddles in the OFF season might be hard !

I've had several RO sanders, and the ones, that have a speed control, are my favorite. Bosch makes the one I'm using now. It's reasonably priced, and can be slowed way down. Ridgid makes one I like also. Both these have held up good for me.

The Porter Cable wouldn't slow down enough to suit me.

Canoes with a lot of Tumblehome are the hardest to sand. That's where I resort to hand sanding, and of course in the inner stems.

Jim

 

Roadrunner,

Lacking finding any pool noodles available in stock in the winter- you might try this. Household forced hot water heating pipe insulation is the same material as pool noodles except it has a 3/4" diameter hole in the middle which facilitates inserting an appropriate sized dowel making the sanding gizmo a tad more ridged if you find that necessary. You will find it available at Home Depot or most lumber yards.

Ed

 

When in doubt, Amazon.com:
https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_...prefix=pool+noodle,aps,239&crid=2YBFGEAN5JCKB

Another option that has worked for me is to ask someone at your local hardware store... there may be leftovers in the back room. ----------------

 

Scrape - don't sand. I would have saved a lot of time if I saw this earlier. Courtesy Nick Schade:

 

These are pretty stiff, but work good !



For getting into the Stems, to clean out hardened glue, a Cut off blade works good !



Jim

 

I scraped as much as I could. To finish up, like others I used a sander and shaped foam backing. Only I used a couple of sanders, a 1/2 sheet sander with softer foam and a Porter Cable detail sander with a firmer foam, like noodle foam. To lengthen the paper for the 1/2 sheet sander, I added duct tape to the ends. With the PC detail sander I used PSA paper. I also used the shapes that came with it. The PC detail sander was considered a failure , if you find a used one it should be like new, but it worked for me.