Resin - Sanding Prep

Resin - Sanding Prep

Many of the resin castings we produce are made in open-faced moulds which can leave a meniscus or a convex undersurface. This is easily dealt with by use of a heavy grit (80 or 120) wet-and-dry paper. Resin dust is toxic and so all sanding should be done whilst wearing a dust mask and in a well-ventilated area. Even better, use water to wet down the sanding area and casting as this will almost eliminate airborne dust; we have omitted water in these photographs for ease of viewing. Any water/dust residue can be easily cleaned off - see Resin Paint Prep tutorial.

Tutorial Steps

  • step
    1
    Resin - Sanding Prep

    Place the casting evenly and squarely onto a flat sheet of wet-and-dry, fixed onto a flat, hard surface. Applying even pressure, make repeated circular movements with the resin piece for 5-6 passes, the reverse the direction of travel for a similar number of passes. If necessary, rotate the piece through 180 degrees relative to the sandpaper and repeat.

  • step
    2
    Resin - Sanding Prep

    Finished underside of cleaned casting showing flattened/levelled area. This is a light sanding taking only 5-10 seconds and removing very little of the detailed resin piece.

  • step
    3
    Resin - Sanding Prep

    Some of our larger models are cast with a hollow void underneath to help reduce postage costs and overall weight. The flash that results can be removed in exactly the same way as described above.

  • step
    4
    Resin - Sanding Prep

    Again, repeatedly pass the bottom-down casting against the sheet of wet-and-dry in a circular pattern, clockwise and then anti-clockwise for approx. half a dozen rotations in each direction. This should be sufficient to remove flash and level off the model's underside so that it sits flat on your table.

  • step
    5
    Resin - Sanding Prep

    Completed, levelled model underside. Now refer to Resin - Paint Prep for details on cleaning off sanding residue.