Mud Duck Blocks

BrianC

BrianC

Promoted Users
I decided last night that I would buy me a sheet of acrylic and make me a few sanding blocks. To buy a small sheet of product was going to to be 50 plus on eBay then I was going to spend man hours fabricating what I needed. Then I ran across Mud Duck Blocks. They have a kit already made for 50 dollars plus shipping. Costed me 65 for the whole kit and I didn’t have to do anything. Just passing the info along if anyone needs something different. Check them out. Pretty nice.
 
Waiting for Shine to express his thoughts :)
If you guys rip your own strips, put blade in saw backwards.
We did lexan 1/2" on windows. Kicked back hard with blade normal.
 
i do a lot of wood work so i use hardwood scraps to make my own . you can get a 5 gal bucket full from a cabinet guy for 5 bucks.
 
For cutting plastics on table saw you really need a good sharp blade. Coating the blade with Teflon or other sprays can help, as can coating the table & fence surface itself to help avoid chattering which produces kickback. Doing a relief cut with the blade not all the way up through material can be a big help with numerous materials.
Call me old fashioned , but I'm with shine on the hardwood blocks. Woods like birch can be at least as hard as plastic & in the small lengths I use for wet sanding are pretty warp resistant even left sitting in water bucket for days.
 
Main reason I like acrylic is you get flatness, hardness, and flexibility to conform to a surface. Using a hard inflexible block on anything but a flat panel is not my idea of fun. Pretty easy to screw things up using a hard flat block in many cases. Or you wind up only using a few inches of a 12 or 16 inch block because of the hardness and inflexibility. I use a 18x24 machinists surface plate (made of granite) to occasionally true my blocks (especially Durablocks) which has no more than .0001 run out on it. That's plenty flat for what we do.
I also found that as my experience level increased the less I needed a perfect block for every situation. Real key is like JC said a while ago and that is to only try to get stuff straight in the coarser grits.
 
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What do you use for handles on the Mud Duck blocks?
I have used homemade 1/4 thick balsa wood blocks but could never come up with a good way to hold them. Gripping them on the sides with your fingertips is tough.
 
They use tape as a floppy handle. Works great.
 

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Brian,
For years, Spi was badmouthed all over the Internet. Yet, people gave it a shot. Look what it's become. These may be just the thing you need. Enjoy the blocks. Go make
 
I use 150 grit for my initial primer sanding.
A softer block with coarse paper will follow the contours of the panel and
get it straight (if that makes sense)
A real hard block has its place but on curved surfaces you have to be careful not
to put a "flat" in your curve.
 
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