abrasive companies compatibility
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I’m looking into several different brands of abrasives, in several different forms, and I’m having a hard time learning what brands are compatible with each other.
For example, Hookit and Hookit II are essentially the same velcro but the arrangement for ‘hook’ side and ‘loop’ side are reversed. ..unless there’s something I’m missing, it would seem that other manufacturers of sandpaper would work with one or the other in a velco fashion. which is Norgip from Norton?
3m Roloc discs – are Mirka and other brands compatible? they say “R” type holder.
I’ve been doing a little leg work, and reading threads on what paper is best, and coming up with lots of opinions, understandably. I’m very curious what you pro shops use. Do you stick to 1 line based on what your distributor carries, or different lines based on who provides the best bang for the buck for a given size/type?
thanks in advance. I’m really hoping to get my truck done over the course of the winter.
Hey bob the shop im at we use norton hookits i find they cut better and last longer than 3m discs.
Havnt really used any other brand of discs.I Used Mirka in the shop, Now I use 3M hookit I & II but my supplier is going to norton (price is alot better than 3M) so I will be switching to norton lol.
I’ve heard that Norton is consistently less $ than 3m. so is the Norton ‘hookit’ the same as hookit I or II from 3m?
Hookit 2 is a thing of the past. It is being phased out now. It sucked anyway. Any brands velcro will work with any others backing plates. It is just velcro. Hookit 2 was reversed as you stated. It never worked out for 3M. I think it was there way of having to use their backing plate and only their sandpaper. I hated the sandpaper, it was very stiff. It was really hard to hand sand with a piece of it and it was way overpriced.
Another vote for Norton here. Although the new purple 3M is very nice. I think it lasts longer than the Norton but it does cost more.
All of the roloc’s are the same.
Mirka has the best scuff pads imo. Stay away from Nortons they aren’t that great.
I’ve mostly used Norton and 3M (the 2 most common, here at least). I would definately go velcro, stick it is more of a pain, especially if you don’t completely use up your piece of sandpaper everytime.
I like 3M better, particularly in the finer grits. The new hook-it is great paper, better than Norton when I did a side by side comparison.
But…I don’t pay for it. If I were just doing the odd job at home here and there I would go with Norton. It is more than good enough.
Besides, with the Velcro pad you can switch between whatever brands if you want. And as Ryan said, Hook-It 2 is almost dead, don’t bother with that route
all the major brands have their own “economy” line up which sometimes sucks sometimes works. as far as shopping for value, i think norton is great. just to give u a comparison, 6″ 3m 3000 grit trizac goes for about 60 bucks around here, under norton it goes for a little less then 30 and i think the norton lasts a bit longer too. Ben brought up a good point about using the velcro paper since good paper in general is expensive and you can always remove it and store it for later use if you didnt completely use it up.
using hookit paper is a must in my opinion for finer grit like 400 and above. in my shop im constantly trying new materials and always looking for a better value
this is very good stuff. thanks all
I go through TONS of 80 grit PSA discs on my fiberglass stuff. my poor hutchins orbital really gets a workout some days. I’ve always used stickit paper because it’s cheap, and is supposed to cut flatter.
I have a few backing pads that are hookit II, and there’s nothing I can do about it…. argh. I’ll have to buy a couple more regular hookit
is there a good online place that sells norton paper? seems like the main websites I go to don’t carry much of it, if any.
I will say i have been a norton guy for years. On average it is about $5-8 a box cheaper than 3m. Recently i did some comparison with 3m’s purple clean sanding discs and found them to consistantly outlast norton 2-1. When you take that into consideration the 3m is actually cheaper.
Mirka is a decent paper that is reasonably priced(the gold velcro high end),norton is good in my book.What many people don’t know is that carborundum abrasives is the same as norton(both owned by saint gobain abrasives)carbo is also less money for the exact same sand paper only a different color.The old 3m gold was a decent paper and the 3m purple is pretty nice for orbital paper but the long skinnies for body work suck.IMO carbo is the best bang for the buck,and it will outlast 3m.
3M and Mirka here :rock
3M disc and Mirka rolls :clappy
Trizac is the cheese for me in final finishing 😉the big 3 places I go to for autobody stuff don’t carry much norton…. tcpglobal, eastwood, and autobodytoolmart. anybody have a jobber in my general area that can get me some stuff?
bondo – you’re in WA right?
done alot of business with autobodytoolmart for yrs…… :dnc
but you obviously haven’t been picking up norton paper there…..
seems like between them and TCPglobal, they have pretty much everything I have ever needed.
Some 3M lasts longer than Norton/Carbo and vice versa. From what I have used
Blue Norton works better than the purple 3M in P320-P400 if not using self-vac
P500 just pick one about the same
3M purple lasts longer than Norton champagne in P600-P800
Norton dry ice/ carbo (?) lasts longer than 3M white in P1000-P1500
The multi-air kinda sucks imo. 3M purple is better for self vac.
I use a mixture of both, whatever paper works better in the specific grade is the one I use. I tend to stick with Mirka scuff pads also. They are hands down better than the other two. A more even faster cut and last long.
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