Regarding the history of sandpaper, the best I can google is this blurb:
"June 14, 1834,Isaac Fischer Jr patents sandpaper "
Not a lot of info but it begs the question , How in the world did SO much get SO smooth before june of 1834?
( And why is there not a website devoted to the tale?)
Strangely interesting question, I just checked wikipedia and they mention:
“The first recorded instance of sandpaper was in 13th century China when crushed shells, seeds, and sand were bonded to parchment using natural gum.”
Their has to be more to the story.
Pretty much anything with grit can be used to polish. Here are some examples from SCA types: http://www.florilegium.org/files/CRAFTS/polishing-msg.html
yeah, strange, huh?
I’m not really interested how a cave man used sand and ash to polish a bone , what I’m looking for is an explanation of the palace at Versailles or the Taj Mahal…etc…
Certainly there was an accepted way that was codified then. Heaven help me if they used sand, leather and ash. certainly a mirror smooth finish on wood cannot be done with a wet process, water raising the grain and all that.
Makes you wonder
I’ve read that the Egyptians used sand and stones to smooth and fit the blocks for the pyramids.
But that’s not paper.
Peace,
mangeorge
Weeks, a mirror smooth surface on wood isn’t achieved with sandpaper. The mirror finish comes from shellac, varnish, waxes, oils, etc.
Some (hard)woods can be polished to a very high, even reflective, gloss using nothing but abrasives.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Gimme’the benefit of a doubt. Hows this? " a mirror smooth surface on wood,( one that involves shellac, varnish, waxes, oils, etc). cannot come from a wet process…
We all know what I’m talking about , right?
That’s not entirely true. Cocuswood for example, will take a darn nice shine with nothing more than 400 grit sandpaper. You can see your reflection in it! Other hardwoods shine up to varying degrees when sanded, and to achieve a good finish, are sanded before being laquered and polished. If you start laquering on a rough surface, it takes many more coats to get good results.
Don’t back out now, I’m agreeing with you. As is Squink.
In practice, at least in the furniture business, that is incorrect. I spent three years in college supplementing my income in the repair shop of a major furniture store, and all of our polishing was done with a wet process similar to what was described in my cite above. If you try to buff out a lacquer finish dry, you will burn it; you need some type of liquid to lubricate the buffing compound. Modern acrylic lacquer is waterproof, so the wood cannot absorb the liquid, at least not in the time requied to buff out a tabletop…
As I recall wood shop in high school, we used a wood filler to fill up the grain in oak and other open grain woods. Then the surface could be sanded to an exceedingly smooth surface. After the finish was applied, pumice and other fine abrasives were used to polish the finish to a mirror finish - which lasted until dad dropped pipe embers on it. but that’s another story.
Fear istelf, there is only one problem with your cite…It involves 2000 grit sandpaper! And what the hell is rottonstone, wait, don’t answer that.
Yo, Dave, your story involves sandpaper!
Before sandpaper, there were scrapers . Take a thin metal plate, file the edge to 90 degrees flat, and then burnish the edge to develop a fine burr. Purists claim that this will give you a smoother finish than sanding.
I wonder how much shark skin has been used to sand wood. The placoid scales are quite rough… ok just found a couple links for shagreen:
making shark leather (don’t mind the urine bath part)
shagreen definition
This resource has always been around… as long as you weren’t too far from the ocean.
I thought that was the whole point!
Exactly. Handplanes have been around since the Romans, and artistic renderings of building and cabinetmaking and the like since those times often feature the craftsman using planes. Using planes is almost a lost art now, but back before people were so reliant on mechanized joiners and the like, that’s what people used (planes) for their finishing work. In fact, even before the finishing work begins, handplanes have many applications and leave the wood very smooth. You hardly need sandpaper when you use a handplane (and you can use a finishing plane or scraper for the places that do need it). I guess sandpaper is so big now because it is cheap, and you don’t need expertise to use it, and it doesn’t need sharpening and maintaining.
Stones were an early precursor to sandpaper. An ancient Egyptian depiction of a construction site (found in a tomb) showed craftsman using a stone to smooth wood. Other wooden artifacts from that culture have markings that show this was the usual method. They didn’t know/use planes.
I would still reach for my scrapers before sandpaper if I was looking for a truly mirror like finish on wood that was going to be stained or French Polished. Sandpaper leaves residue that fills the pores of the wood, dulling its appearance. This can be hidden or disguised with shiny new coatings but if you are doing a fine furniture piece the scraper is the way to go.
This is especially true on pieces where the figure of the grain features prominently such as tiger, birds eye or flame maple, curly koa and other strongly figured woods. I won’t even start to get into hard it is to finish these and still make the figure pop.