Sanding Sponges SUCK! Not Ekadiamond Sponges.

Hey soul today we're here with Curtis Hicks from Unida we're upstairs and um your storage facility the old part of the storage facility place is huge it's like a hundred thousand square feet so we've got um some new braces we want to talk about in its Echo diamonds so academic curtisix is the master of all these abrasives and he's gonna give us a little bit of insight and um some technical information on what this is so you know Chris can you just tell me what is academic sponges and what's so special about it why as a painter should I buy this product absolutely well first of all I'm excited about this product next episode plus this has been the the greatest thing we've come up with and first one thing to know is that if you want this sponge in the United States you got to get it from paint life from us because that's the only place that you're going to get them and it's exclusive to the United States there's two things about this sponge that really separate it from any other abrasive sponge on the market most people that are using half inch and a lot of your customers I'm sure they're typically using it coming around the edge of a cabinet door so you've got that sharp corner and any sponge it doesn't mean they're not good they're just not built for this and they will tend to tear so there you are tossing a very good brand new sponge with lots of grain because you can't use any more since you've torn it I don't know what the substrate is they've put on this but it's almost like Kevlar you cannot tear this I mean you would have to dig in to tear it so what we're finding on this even in big shops that are doing hundred thousand doors a week is that they have cut their sponge uses down by four or five times simply because it's not tearing the other thing about sponges is they tend to shed really bad and when I say shed what that means is if you take it and rub it together and you put it over a piece of paper you're going to see a lot of that grain end up on on the paper it's a good way to to see it if it's on a white sheet of paper that's natural with most sponges this stuff is it almost sheds not at all and the problem with shedding we even had to come out with a white sponge because it was transparent so if it did shed you wouldn't see the little specks of black in your finish because a lot of times people see their finish a little speck of black it came from the sponge right it's got it landed on the part you finished it and now you got a little black Speck so the two main things about this sponge number one you practice can't tear it number two it doesn't shed and the diamond pattern is very unique because what this is creating for you is is some space between these Diamond pads so it does help it keep from loading as quick right now the cool thing about sponges just like with Alka silk plus is you can take a air knife and just blow it out really easy if it does load and they're even washable I don't know that anybody would ever want to do that but you can wash them let them dry back out and and keep using them I would say the one thing about this sponge is really cut our sponge cells down right but uh you know that's a good thing because we do want to help the customer out there and this this has been a great Innovation I know that like the washable part of it um we were accustomed to taking and wetting our sponges um to sand Bondo and stuff when we've got to run somewhere we're scraping out the run we're Bond doing it and then sanding it and I think um and that was really to keep it cool um the Sandpaper cool and keep the surface from heating up um I'm not sure if that's necessary with this type of product you know and some of that is probably just um not understanding how to use the abrasive correctly and stuff and because um you know heat is is your big enemy yeah the kid I know with this obviously is being done by hand just in your mind try to try not to put that pressure on I know everybody feels like the harder I stand the quicker I'm getting this job done but these grains are little cutting tools so let them do their work right you know just use light pressure it's going to crack and resharpen and constantly give you a nice cutting tool tool and that'll help keep from the loading because the more friction you build the more it's eating up the more it's going to stick in between the grains but this one is unique in that it will take do a better job of not loading because of the channels in between right it's going to run a little cooler because of that but but the key to that is it's not going to it's going to load up in that channel rather than into the grain right if you're giving the the the the substrate you're sanding a place to stick to rather than inside the Grain and I know what are the other frustrating things with foam abrasives is a lot of times you know for Whatever Manufacturing reasons they can't you know um identify it with um a number and let you know but you guys have done something kind of unique and these abrasives right here they're color coded and the color coding actually means something can you just tell us what um the abrasives are and it's a very good point because on a half inch sponge it's really not a way to print to it if you use a one-sided sponge you can print to the back the grit one inch sponge you'll have it on the front the blocks but these it was always very difficult but I'd be in a shop myself and have to fill it to know what's going on because for every color you had different grits so this is really cool and the way I would separate this is first of all the Grits are the green is 100 grit now when you're talking about grits on sandpaper that's why in the past we never would tell you what grid it was we would say it's finer super fine because somebody says Hunter grid oh my God I'm going to tear something up with that a simple rule of thumb to know about sponge grating is it is made with a 100 grit grain which is typically a stock removal grain but because of this foam you get a lot of recession so you're not you're not you're getting the tip of that grain so the best way to do it is take that grain just as rule of thumb and multiply it by two so 100 grit is going to typically finish around a 220 180 220 120 is going to finish more like a 240 to 280 somewhere around there so just don't get freaked out if you're using something that says 100 grit on a sponge so the 100 grit is the green the gold is 120 purple's 150 the blue is 180 and the Orange is 220. now the way I would separate this these two here the 100 grit and the 120 are almost always going to be used on paint um you know that that just is typically your go-to for in between coats of paint um when you start getting in the in the coach uh seal coach you need something a lot finer because you really don't want to cut through paints even a little bit easier to repair than cutting through a seal coat so 150 is kind of right there in the middle and we do uh see pretty good usage on this but the most popular grip by far for in between coats of silcoat or seal sanding is going to be the 180 right and then the 220 if you wanted a little bit less aggressive and quite frankly with some of this stuff and one thing um and I think you guys sell it is the sample pack where you kind of get a little bit of each and that's really the best way to do it because each person's a little different you know you got bigger arms than me so you're probably hitting a little harder and so you might want to go a little bit finer than I would but you kind of want to play with that a little bit and get get your sweet spot yeah it's kind of interesting because um you learn something every day I had no idea why um you know numbers weren't used and it was um you know identified just by fine or very fine so that's great and then just multiplying that number and understanding that that's it's not perfect but it's close just as a rule of thumb if you multiply it by two you know you've got finished products here none of this is made in fact if you tried to cut white wood with this you're just wasting your time yeah exactly I would have never thought a 100 100 grit would be for finishing so that's that's good to know so cool little um fact about the abrasives there so if you guys got any questions about academic sponges um just leave it down in the comment section below we'll try to answer your questions you know as soon as we can we'll see you right here next time on baitlive TV out [Music] thanks [Music]