Replacing Hand Wire Wool with Festool Sanding Pad ?

[jminitials]

Hello everyone,
We have oiled oak kitchen worktops, and every few months I have to prepare the surface for re-oiling; and the advice has always been to hand prepare with wire wool (fairly course grade).
But I am quite sure that my ETS150 could do the job - probably better and quicker than I do.
BUT - what sanding pad or paper should I use ? Normal sanding paper gets clogged almost immediately.
I don't go back to bare wood - just back to a smooth and clean surface that will take a fresh coat of Danish Oil.

What do you think ?

Best wishes for Christmas !

 

[Ben63]

Oh, I would not use wire wool on oak. If there is left some of the metal on the oak, there will be black spots on it.
I used Danish Oil a long time ago, now I have a better and much cheaper finish. But that is a different story.

 

[pixelated]

I've used a Scotchbrite pad for cleaning and re-waxing cutting boards and similar surfaces with the sander. It has worked well for me.
+1 on not using steel wool, on surfaces that may get wet, or high-tannin woods like oak.

 

[RKA]

Green vlies pads?

 

[DeformedTree]

I used scottbrite brand pads on a project before (water based poly).  In the store I found white finishing pads by 3M.  Online found some people using them by just putting their orbital on them and going with it. I did this and it worked great.  Far as a direct replacement  5 inch pad for orbitals, it seams to be something that hasn't really been directly addressed or not mainstream wise.

But I have order up the vlies pads to see how they go as it looks like the 2 Festool list as an sandpaper match up with marroon and green scotchbrite. I've also order the vlies Festool sells for polishing, expecting these to match up to  grey and white scotchbrite.

Will known soon how this works.  I'm really not sure why companies like Festool don't directly address this without folks having to go thru guessing on this.  I did a lot of digging trying to find something as I would have thought " 5" scottbrite pads" would have just come right up with stuff, but nope. And then you get into the world of that being a TM name, so no one else uses it.  I found a few places that look to be selling a solution. For now I'm going to try stuff from Festool catalog as that has easy procurability.

I suspect there is a lot of people still using Oil based poly and steel wool, and not everyone is just shifting over to waterbased.  Along with I don't think a lot of folks are buffing out their poly.  I think there is a woodwisper video where he mentions using the Vlies pads for this purpose.

 

[Birdhunter]

The OP has convinced me to never own wood counter tops!

I use Scotch pads for all my fine sanding. My coarse pads are either green or gray and the finest are white. The gray ones make wonderful pot scrubbers when cut into 3” squares. With some dish soap, they can clean out the nastiest gunk in a pan and then be tossed away.

There are a lot of food safe finishes I would use for the counters instead of Danish oil. They cure much faster and do not smell

I second not using steel wool on wood. I have used bronze wool.

 

[rvieceli]

3M makes a series of non-woven Scotchbrite pads in 6 inch diameter hook and look. Here is a selection from MSC
https://www.mscdirect.com/browse/tn...brasives/Discs/Hook-Loop-Discs?navid=12100137+4294957236+4288242375+4288221959

Ron

 

[leakyroof]

Vlies is included with Festool’s Surfix Kit, it works well for other oils too. Before using Vlies , I used Wet/Dry Sandpaper .  Using a ETS Sander with Vlies is way faster for large surfaces than the way I used to do it.

 

[DeformedTree]

I got my Vlies,  haven't used them yet.  They are the same as Scotchbrite but I will say the white ones have a different feel/structure to them compared to the white scottbright (finishing pad).  But grit wise I think it will be the same.

 

[jminitials]

All looking very interesting and useful - thank you.

As soon as I have finished re-building some stables (yes, another story...) I'll move indoors and work on these worktops.

Best wishes for the New Year to all.

 

[DeformedTree]

I just did a project that was used as a test.  Baltic birch with water based poly.  The Vlies worked great, though I did destroy a white one thru my own stupidity.

I also bought an 800grit one which only comes in 6".  Only used it on one panel, I'm not sure if it was really needed verses just going  maroon (320) -> Green -> White.