Flat sanding

[Otto]

Lately I hav been having trouble sanding my scales and wooden handles flat. When building a handle of several pices of wood they need to be completely flat so that there will be no crack.
Do you people have som tricks of tips for me?

[narsil]

I use a piece of resin impregnated plywood as a base, its about 40cm long and 15cm wide. Just clamp the board in a vise and clamp some sand paper to it. If you cover the surface you're sanding with charcoal or pencil lines you can check progress and any low spots will be visible.

You're basically using it in the same way that you would use a bench stone for sharpening.

It seems to be easier to get a very flat surface this way, moving the wood rather than the abrasive.

[Otto]

Yes i do the same ting but i have a brass plack as my flat surface. Arn't there any other/better ways?

[Underhay]

I've had similar problems.
As Narsil and you already do, I use the abrasive sheet on a flat surface and move the piece I'm working on. A couple of tips that may help are-
1.Sand the piece in a circular motion, and regularly rotate it in your hand, so any uneven pressure should be cancelled out.
2.If the piece is at all flexible, uneven pressure from fingers will cause problems, so I temporaily stick it onto a flat backing block and push down on this while sanding.

I hope this helps. If you find a really good answer to this, please post it!

[ElThomsono]

If you have access to a thicknesser there is a way to get perfect results. First, you need to attatch the scales to a larger piece of wood to let it pass through without getting caught. The way I do this is to glue the smaller piece of wood to a sheet of paper, using PVA, and then the other side of the paper to a sheet of plywood. This can now be ran through the thicknesser, which will smooth the top out perfectly level with the board. To remove it again, just pry it gently off with a sharp knife (if you have one ;) ), the paper will tear apart, leaving the wood entact, and can be easliy removed later.

[Colin KC]

Otto, it is difficult, but you should find that it's only the edges that aren't getting flat enough, soooo, if you flatten the wood when it's oversize, trimming it down removes the dodgy edge;)

Works for me:D

[stonehard]

Use 3M temporary spray mount to stick your abrasive paper to the flat surface.
it keeps it flat and stops ripples building up on the surface of the paper just at the edge of your scale. these ripples make the edges of your scale a little round thus the gaps when glueing.
Of course you can change the grades of paper by just pulling the sheet off and sticking another one on to the flat surface. I find a sheet of thickish glass is pretty good and if on the last few strokes you pull the scale towards you and lift and start again your chances are greatly improved.

[Otto]

That sounds good. The thicknesser sounds expencive. I'll try to get a block of kitchen tabeltop (marble/granit) and see how it goes