Woodworking Tips, Tools, Hardware, News

Plywood is a bugger to cut - so to get it right, here are some handy tips.

Tip1

Don’t cross cut - in other words, cut along the grain not across it.

Tip2

Don’t be lazy, use the right blade for cutting the plywood - generally a fine tooth saw blade is better.

Tip3

Use masking tape over the cut to keep the splintering to a minimum. Better still, attach a backing panel as well to take the brunt of the cut. Then score with your trusty utility knife and then again with your saw (ie just take off a small amount of wood - not the full thickness) before you go through it again with a second full thickness cut.

Tip4

When using a table saw, cut with the ‘best face’ up and if you’re using a circular saw, cut with the ‘best face’ down. Better still use a router fitted with a straight bit - using a pilot bit with a straight edge will ensure you get that perfect clean line. If you are planning to do a lot of plywood cutting then it may be worthwhile investing in a panel scoring kit which consists of a smaller blade that does the scoring for you before the cutter takes over to make the second full thickness cut.

• Woodworking hand tools
• Woodworking power tools

The main types of sandpaper used in woodworking

• Aluminum Oxide sandpaper
  by far the most common one used in woodworking. Of all the sandpapers it is the most long lasting of all and that’s because it’s ‘friable’. By that we mean that as you sand, heat and pressure on the aluminum oxide causes it to fragment and therefore create sharp edges for future sanding resulting in a longer lifespan for the sandpaper.
• Ceramic sandpaper
  the hardest of all the sandpapers and really only suitable for really rough sanding of wood. So if you want to take of alot of wood in one hit, then ceramic sandpaper is the way to go. Having said that, it’s also one of the most costly alternatives so I’d go easy on it. Commonly used in most woodworking power tools like power sander belts.
• Garnet sandpaper
  not as friable as aluminum oxide therefore wears out faster but still pretty commonly used in woodworking. As a final sanding paper it’s ideal because it doesn’t tend to keep roughing the surface like aluminum oxide does.
• Silicon carbide sandpaper
  harder than aluminum oxide and garnet but tends to be better used in harder surfaces like plastic and fibreglass. It is also friable but wood isn’t tough enough a surface to fragment the sandpaper surface so it does tend to lose it’s efficacy faster than aluminum oxide.

Sandpaper - the nitty gritty

With sandpaper, the higher the grit number, the finer the sanding result. So as a general rule of thumb you ‘go through the grits’ ie you start with a lower number grit sandpaper and work your way up to the finer sandpapers with the higher grit numbers. In case you are thinking that this means a long and hard slog, most woodworkers will only sand to a maximum of 180grit. For water based stains some woodworkers will go the extra mile to sand to up to 200grit but that’s usually as far as you’ll need to go. As for industrial grade or commercial grade sandpaper, most woodworkers will only really need the commercial grade (industrial grade sandpaper aren’t usually stocked at hardware stores anyway) - unless you’re in a production line the commercial grade stuff will do the job fine.

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