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Ordinary sandpaper is a PITA to install on a French wheel, and open mesh stuff like Abranet can't be done at all (meaning without folds or lumps) unless tools are used to hold everything in place.

It's springy, it's sharp, and takes tin snips to cut cleanly. It fights being wrapped around something like a French wheel, in other words. And the coarser the grit the harder it fights.

Anyway, the key "ingredients" are a large handscrew wood clamp, a piece of plywood, a block of "memory foam", and a roll of hockey tape.

This piece was 80 grit, and it surrendered like a newborn puppy.

Pictures explain it better than words:

I salute your ingenuity, George... but this seems like more of a pain than sandpaper, no?

It's one of those labor on the front end saves it on the back end situations. Abranet lasts a lot longer than paper.

Also, paper coarser than 120 or so cracks when bent too sharply, while this stuff doesn't. You can "go rougher" with it.

This is some Doc'esque ingenuity.

Also, after looking at these photos, I find myself wondering how fine of a suit you would have made had you gone the tailor/seamstress...seamster (I don't know) route versus the pipe repairman.

Clever!

Never got on with a French wheel myself.

caskwith wrote: ↑Wed Jan 10, 2024 5:19 pm Clever!

Never got on with a French wheel myself.

I'd be surprised if you did. Renault? Citroen? Peugeot? They are hard to spell, never mind pronounce.

A true English wheel, on the other hand, is a thing of beauty: