Controlling how wood moves as humidity rises and falls is never far from the minds of craftspeople. But for some reason, we do not tend to extend the same care to sanding supplies. Sanding sheets, and the sanding discs cut from them, most often are made with a paper backer. The paper freely absorbs moisture through the back while the front is protected by the coating that bonds the abrasive side. This is why unused sanding sheets in the shop tend to be curled to varying degrees. It may be just the edges, or the entire sheet may end up as a roll.

Cloth-backed abrasive products usually are not affected as much, but can show the same curl over time. Additionally, die stamping imparts a mechanical curl to discs as they are cut from sheet stock. This is even seen with mesh products such as Abranet. With all this in mind, we wanted to share a few ideas for storing your sanding supplies that will not only keep them organized by type and grit, but will also keep them as flat as possible until use.

Sanding sheets come in flat boxes that do help keep them flat, but once opened, thin packaging is not really useful for storage, and thicker boxes that contain 50 or 100 sheets leave plenty of room for corners to begin rolling as more sheets get removed. Since the paper that makes up the backer is the problem, the solution may be found in how we file and store other sorts of papers. Individual manila file folders are pretty good for separating and labeling different grits of sandpaper. These can then be stored in binders or portfolios. Hanging folders in a small file box allows for further separation of different types of paper by type of grit or usage such as aluminum oxide, silicon carbide and wet/dry.

Storing your disks so that they do not curl over time requires different strategies. Keeping them flat can be as simple as maintaining some weight on top of the disks. Once the box of disks is open, a plywood scrap can be cut to fit close within the box. This minor weight will help keep the disks flat but can be removed instantly to grab another disk whenever needed. The box itself is labeled with the information on the disks inside, or this info can be marked on top of the plywood weight.

We designed another disk storage solution that can be found with our Downdraft Sanding Station plans. We created a wood box to hang from the side of the sanding station cabinet. The face of the box rests on a set of pegs in angled slots. This is another way that the weight of the cover is used to keep disks in place and flat. You can find the blog posts covering the build along with a full set of plans in our Downdraft Sanding Station Plans posts from earlier this year.

These are just some ideas we have seen or used ourselves over the years. If you have clever ideas that you've used for storing your sanding supplies to keep them organized and flat, please share them with us at service@2sand.com. We just might feature your idea in a future post!