I find it interesting that the image that jumps to mind when someone hears “sanding” or “sanding supplies” is good old fashioned sandpaper in sheet form. This is interesting to me because over many years of writing this sanding based blog, I have found more uses for sanding rolls than sanding sheets. And to be perfectly clear, I am primarily referring to cloth backed rolls, referred to on our site as “Cloth Shop Rolls”.

I have used 3” and 4” wide rolls on commercial drum sanders, I have used a sanding belts from 1/2” wide to 60” wide, disks of every description from 2” to 20” in diameter, and recent blogs have proven that I know my way around sanding sheets; but for pure utility, it is hard to beat having several grits of Cloth Shop Rolls on hand.

When I needed a versatile sander for wide curved parts, I was able to quickly create one using my lathe to get the job done. When cleaning up some antique patio chairs for powder coating, my stock of sanding rolls were brought out again, and a shop-built flap sander got the job done. And for smaller jobs, the dowel hole sander uses these same versatile strips of abrasive.

And it's not just me who finds this form of sandpaper useful. Woodturners rely on cloth strips for sanding and finishing spindles. Stair installers rely on it for cleaning up balustrades after installation. Machinists, who refer to it as “emery cloth”, use the same flexible strips to remove rust and to polish fittings. 

You may want to order a couple of rolls so that the next time you are trying to figure out how to sand, smooth or clean that difficult to sand "thing", you can save time and money by having Cloth Shop Rolls ready to use.

Ralph Bagnall is a long-standing writer of blogs and content for 2Sand.com. In addition to consulting to the woodworking industry, Ralph is the host of  WoodcademyTV, as seen on YouTube and Amazon Prime. 2Sand.com is a proud sponsor of WoodcademyTV.