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Sanders Updated 13 Aug 2007

Choosing the right paper

You need to get the right paper for the job at hand ...

Open-coat abrasives

Special open-coat papers are available for dry-sanding painted surfaces. Open-coat papers don't clog up as quickly - especially when sanding soft acrylic paints, and can be identified by the grey/white coating colour.

Grit size and type

Generally, the softer the surface you want to sand, and the more material you want to remove, the bigger the grit size should be.

But bigger grit sizes leave deeper scratch marks. The solution: finish off using the "double and back one" rule. This means if you do the bulk of the job with, say, 60 grit, you should finish off with a paper that is 60 x 2 = 120, back one grit size = 100 grit.

Grit size is commonly printed on the back of the paper - the higher the number, the smaller the particle (240 grit is finer than 100 grit).