How To Get Cabinet Ready To Paint?

all right today I'm here with Sherry at unida's headquarters where all their abrasives are manufactured and she is the hand sanding expert so we're going to be talking about the pad saver I was just going over with you you know some tips and tricks when it comes to sanding and I found out that I haven't been using one of these things and I really should be using one of these things all the time it comes with a kit you could buy on the kit from paint life Supply Co or you can buy it from unida's website it's a kit that includes the sander a bag and a lot of other abrasives it includes this little device right here too Sherry can you talk a little bit about this pad saver why it's so important yeah this pod saver is what keeps you from swirling your wood so anytime you're running a sheet good which is a conventional abrasive sheet we always have to put the Pod Saver in between and the reason being Chris is that if you don't have this pad saver what happens is the center panel will start to vibrate and it'll catch the sander and the sander will skip across the surface causing swirl marks so when you put the pad saver on it actually absorbs some of that and it allows it to move smoother unfortunately because of the sander you're still going to see a few swirl marks but it's going to lessen this a lot the other thing that the pad saver does is it saves your backup pad because pulling this on and off as you can see every time you pull this on and off it stretches out the hooks not only that we generate heat so the hooks will eventually straighten out right and that becomes a problem so the pad saver will actually prolong the life of your backup pad the hooks and you'll just be replacing the pad saver versus the side effects so it's interesting because when you told me that I instantly related to what you were talking about when it comes to the sand or walking this is what I typically did I would always tell somebody that didn't know how to use my sand Nerf as an employer or something you always got to put a pad saver on so you don't damage this which is probably good practice but when I was using it myself I would always just put the film Tech on but a lot of times when I start sanding I would get vibration and the sand would start off walking as soon as I you know pressed the on button and started sanding so you're now telling me this will eliminate a lot of that very much so one of the things the questions I would have for you is is this going to hinder um us from getting a really flat finish no no no because there's no it's going to act as a shop absorber to absorb the vibration but it's still stiff enough that you're going to be able to apply the pressure that you need and it's not going to give you any give on the abrasive that's the one thing that you know you can when you look at pied Savers versus interface pads the interface pad is to give you that little bit of give of the abrasive to allow that abrasive to kind of recede well with this it's going to stay prominent and that's what we want when we're trying to flatten out something like that we want that problem that that abrasive grain to stay prominent and stay focused on the wood and this will not change that all right so now just to um summarize this sharing so we've got our pad saver and anytime I'm using filmtech with which is a plastic abrasive I use it all the time I definitely always want to use a pad saver absolutely okay so if I know some people are using paper braces this is a flat paper evasive um called echostorm so do I want to use the pad saver when yeah yeah that's some really good information so I've read ended up this problem and now I think I'm gonna um have a little more success with my sanding um not have swirls probably in the future using this uh now I want to get it right this is a pad saver is it a pad saver it comes with an interface pad I usually don't use the interface pad this is a paper abrasive someone want to use an interface pad with this also right padsaver and I say there's quite a bit oh God I want to always use an interface back this thing is very important if you don't have an interface pad if you haven't bought the kit you're going to find out today sweetie isn't that sound pet saver good job I was gonna just roll with it because it doesn't matter everybody calls it in a face but I haven't done that I saw you like I was like it must be important yeah maybe three times it's too much I run into swirls it's been a challenge and I learned now that there's a product how to get rid of swirls so Sherry can you talk about um these products here and give us a little information how we can use those things with our three by four sander yeah Chris these are both non-woven they have hook Ed work on swirls in the three by four size so don't do it with a five inch random orbital because you're gonna cause more swirls they do have abrasive grain in them you've got a 320 grit aluminum oxide and you've got a 600 grit silicon carbide the only reason I use the 320 grit is if I've got a someone that has really swirled something up with a five inch and we've got some major pigtails going on I need something a little bit more aggressive right so then we'll use the maroon day to day I use the gray this is where if someone has used the three by four in the center panel and it's caught and it's swirled up a little bit we can actually use the gray over it on the raw wood and it'll eliminate it mask the swirls so it really knocks the tops off of them so that you don't see them in stain right that's interesting so now I've learned something completely new because they know there was one cabinet job I ran into and I think I know now why I got the swirls because I wasn't using a pad saver to begin with I was using just um sponges to sand in between coat or I I think I might have even used film Tech which was causing me to get some walking to get some Swirls and that's trying to eliminate the swirls with sponges like super fine sponges but that's probably not the best thing to do right no and and another thing that another big reason why you would get swirls with foam would be using the wrong thickness or the wrong density of uh sponge the half inch sponge has has been sold from the very beginning was really the first one that came out in the U.S right and so it was sold at trade shows and the neat thing was is that you would see it on the sander and you'd see it on profiles so everybody got all excited because you could get into the profiles and the flutes on the profiles right and so everybody was all excited about it and they bought it and they bought the kit and they got the half inch out and they immediately went to sand and they would sand in all flats and what ends up happening when we sand on Flats with the half inch is that this abrasive grain recedes into the sponge right so you're having yours you have the weight of the sander on that sponge and as you're sanding again direct drive system it's spinning and it's causing it to catch and twist and that's going to cause you Sorrel marks and cause you a lot of problems so it's kind of like fighting myself using the wrong abrasive for the wrong thing so um so this is really good information to know so we now have these um are they called woven or non-woven non-woven which is really interesting to me because it I look at that and I see it's like a woven material but what is the non-woven it's actually referencing it's nylon fibers and if you've ever seen it made you would understand it's it it starts so super thick right and they depending on how the fibers are laying they'll spray grain and then they'll spray their resins and then it goes through a bed and it's got millions of needles and it just needles it down into each other so there's nothing actually tying any of this together it's just very separate so all this just kind of kind of you know you'll start to see it Fray after usage for a while but that's due to not having anything tying it together it's just needled down inside itself so it's pretty cool interesting um you know fact or information about that that I didn't know so um we talked about the importance of the pad saver that we should be using now with conventional abrasives now if I'm using that non-woven non-woven did I say that right non-woven non-woven pad to eliminate swirls do I use the pad saver no the only time we use a pad saver is with can what we call conventional abrasives that's you know sanding discs or sanding pads such as these either be filmed or paper sheets okay so that's some good information now um we've talked about you know how to get rid of swirls using these non-woven pads and I guess um another thing that you know just came up to me you know because I noticed you know there's holes in all these things for vacuuming and um and in all the abrasives that we see right here when I'm using the um non-woven pad is it going to be vacuuming or am I going to be creating that so it's going to be vacuumed right it's gonna it's gonna vacuum right through here okay it's it's pretty um open and so it pulls through we do uh punch holes in this if you need it if you see that you you are generating too much dust we do have these available with holes I don't run the holes just simply because I feel like I get enough suction with it there is another product that comes in unida's kit that um is sold on eight lives of glyco that um you may if you buy the kit you may not know what the heck these are for they're called interface pads um look a little bit unused usual we're going to talk about the interface pad and their importance and why you should be using them because they do serve a purpose and there's some times that you should be using them there's a open cell one and a closed cell one Sherry so can you just talk to um our viewers that might be interested in getting that perfect finish and what they can use these things for well mostly these are used with of course all the time sorry not mostly but all the time with our sheet goods and the reason we have these is because the foam is great when you're talking in the Finish room on prime or anything like that it is the best the speediest way to sand between coats but a lot of times we'll get into areas where there may be you need a little bit more aggressive um I know with conversion varnish that had been a problem with us in the past just some rougher surfaces and when we get into that we can't always use the phone because it doesn't flatten it out and that's the big thing is that if you've got a rough finish it doesn't matter if you sand it if it's still rough when you put your neck code you're going to still see that roughness so the interface pads gives us ability to to replicate the foam but with a conventional abrasive so this is the softer version this is the the soft um 10 millimeter and it'll actually if you need to get down you can see this pillow top we don't want a flat spot but we can actually wrap into that pillow top right we have to be careful though because again while that doesn't level this does so you kind of you got to keep yourself off of The Edge work right this probably isn't the best profile because it's a little tight for this but it kind of gives us an idea of what the other profile that we can use is the which is missing now hand me that it's going to be just a cut this is the a better profile to show it on if I want to sand this with the sander I can take this and I can actually use it to go all the way up into this right if I need it to be a little stiffer so this profile is a little bit shorter I want it to be a little stiffer I'll take a sheet good and I've got a little bit more push into it where I can actually get down into this deep profile right the other thing that I tell people all the time and this is not so much with the not just with the interface pads but with the sponge don't be afraid to use that offset I do that a lot use that offset because that offset will allow you to get in here really good and close because getting down deep in here is hard yeah whether I'll do it by hand so my question would be with um the interface pads do you need the interface pad if you have half inch sponges and what or if you do what's the difference between using this and this combination well there's a lot of times that this will not flatten out a rough finish right it won't fall okay right the other thing is is this if this was raw wood right right if you have knife marks all the way down you're molding yeah I've seen that a lot of times cannot get it out with even with a going to a coarse half inch sponge because that grain recedes I need that grain to stay more prominent but I need a little give so I'll go to the half inch interface pad and then that way I can get in and I can take out those knife marks or the milk molding marks the molder marks that you see so if I want to get a flat finish on a contoured Surface I'm not going to get a flat finish on a contoured surface with this because the grain is going to recede but on that I could get a flat finish on this side so that makes a whole lot of sense to me now hecka storm is yellow film Tech is blue so we've got Sherry she is the master at hand sanding can you talk to us a little bit about you know what these two are and when maybe I would use either or the echostorm is a paper abrasive it's also got a rolled on steroid so it prevents it from loading right but once the steroid's gone then you know it you no longer have that protection with filmtech it's a film plastic film abrasive right and it doesn't tear it also has the the steroid in the resins so when you're sanding it continues to dissipate the dust away from it the nice thing about film is that if I get in the corner right and I bump in I can actually get all the way to the corner because it won't lose Grain on the corner and it won't tear where paper will actually tear and you'll start to see the grain shed right so I I know like I've talked about it um a while you know back and um some people ask me I've always said that um ekka storm which is the yellow which is the paper it actually Cuts better now am I wrong or am I right no you're actually right the echostorm is a little bit more aggressive the initial Cut Rate and when you first start sanding is very it's very aggressive and it goes really fast especially in the coarser grid so when you get a little bit finer grits it starts to slow down it gets a little bit more even but in the coarser grids and you're like 120s 80s 120s even the 150 you get a very uh Advanced cut with the echostorm I like that can storm in the heavier grits I do it's a very good product so because I used to tell people um used to admit and I still do but I want to make sure I get this right if you're like stripping a finish so if I've got this door right here and I want to strip the finish off even down to maybe bare wood um maybe echostorm be better than film tech for that it's it's a little bit cheaper right and it's a lot a little bit better cut and so because in we have a tendency to not use a disc all the way to the end especially when we're stripping stuff down once it stops cutting we ripping it off looking for the next one so the echostorm gives you a better economical uh option and it also gives you a little bit better Cut Rate so it's gonna initially take off more product than what the film Tech World initiative yeah I know there and you brought it up there is a cost difference but to me the cost difference is not that much of a cost difference I know film Tech all around performs very well for me all around so when it comes to the film Tech typically on an average size job I'm only going through about five of these anyway so we're talking just pennies and I don't like to make it too complicated to have too many abrasives you know in my Arsenal so um is that wrong or am I right by doing that no and I think that you know with filmtech because it is film it's flatter and when you're refinishing a job and you're not going into those aggressive you're not stripping it down you're not going into those aggressive grits the film Tech is great and like you said the pricing is not that different filmtech has been fabulous for us because it is a film back abrasive at a paper price and that's been a great Advantage for us now if you're actually going to have to strip the wood back I think that you're going to get a little bit more cut out right and you'll get you know a little bit longer life and I want to touch on this just really quickly too because when I first got into using abrasives like five years ago it really just kind of revolutionized and changed how I did things in cabinet painting a lot of the terminology was new to me and just like right over my head and and I started hearing the word staration I'm like what the heck is that you brought that up and can you just touch on you kind of touched on it this this if you look at it it's yellow and if we look at it like really closely on the camera it's like yellow and gray and what is starration and what does it actually do starration is added into the abrasive right and then you can do it in a multiple different ways one way is to do what we do here with filmtech is to apply this narration into this the resin and then apply it to the abrasive and then when it's sprayed on with this one this called a rolled on steroid so it's actually the steroid is on a roller and it's actually coated on after the abrasive if but before the resins and stuff so it's actually on there with the resins but it wears off much quicker because it supplies out to the rest and so one of the things I learned was that's you know why unidas abrasives are so much more effective sometimes costs a little bit more than what you can buy at your local hardware store is the process that goes to manufacturing this abrasive and typically you're not going to see sterilation in a lot of these lower end abrasives and so they're not going to be as effective they're going to load up a lot more and that's is that kind of correct it is and it isn't um it's cheaper to do a rolled on stair rate than it is to do a steroid in the resin right so if you see um a product with a rolled on steroid it's usually on the the lower end and depending on the grain you know it abrasives is a is an evolving thing and when I talk to people about abrasives and the different grains and why we use this or why we use that that's kind of the steration goes into that up and even though this is a rolled on steroid and it's a less expensive product it's still a really good product because we use a premium grain right out of that come on so they that that's a very a huge point you know when you're looking at abrasives is to make sure that where you're getting it from what kind of sterilation and what you want to do with your substrate previously we introduced and talked to them just briefly about the academic sponge this is something that is very new to the industry um I believe that you guys have the exclusive rights to it here in the United States and maybe even North America and it's a unique sponge so I think you need to stay tuned and listen to what this thing is all about because you're going to show us what it actually is about Sherry what we try to do in the Finish room is we try to eliminate hand sanding and we can do about 90 of with the episode plus and the three by fours and but we still get into areas where we have to have a hand sponge one of the problems in the past has been either you know you have the hands the half inch hand sponge that would when you would come around the corner it tears or you had to be careful because if it was the black or the brown it would leave the gray rain in the white paint so they introduced the white but we're still having grain in the paint you can still feel it if you run your hand over it and that's still got to be flattened down on…