Building Your Own Sanding Blocks
Mark Simpson
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High-density foam sanding blocks are great for sanding filler and primer. However, they can get expensive, and the cost alone can have you second-guessing yourself when it comes to modifying them. Mark Simpson shares a great tip that will help you create custom foam sanding blocks at a fraction of the cost. Using simple hand tools, Simpson modifies foam yoga blocks to create custom sanding blocks for almost any need.
With sanding out your classic car, whether you're doing the body filler or even block sanding your primers, it's not unusual to have a number of foam blocks. They're one of my favorite for doing some of the final cleanup work and stuff on the car. But my biggest problem has been that, sometimes you have those contours or places where you just, none of the blocks that they offer commercially, will really fit in those kind of spaces. Either it's a tight space or it's a unique contour, and you hate to grab a $12 block of rubber and start forming it to something else. And one of the things I found that really, it works really well, and inexpensive, is just grabbing yoga blocks.
I know it sounds kind of strange. They sell these foam rubber blocks for doing yoga with but I've found that you can take these, and you can put them on the table saw, you can form, you can grind them, you can drill them. They're dense enough that you can really contour these to what you need, and soon as you get that shape or that contour that you want, just using your regular right angle sanders and grinders, it takes the sandpaper and it works every bit as good as the expensive block they sell for it. At a fraction of the cost because I can buy a set of yoga blocks online, and I do a little hunting, I bought a pair of these for under $3. And now I have an, I can make custom blocks, whatever shape or contour I want.
So don't ruin your good blocks, rather than contour or reshape an expensive sanding block, get yourself a set of yoga blocks. You'll be able to shape them and whatever you need. And in the future, you'll have those custom ones you made to get in those tough spot.
Great idea with the Yoga blocks. One thing to mention is a flat surface on the block. The commercial Dura blocks are not always flat on the bottom and it will change with use. I use a flat piece of laminated glass and stick a length of sandpaper to it and sand my blocks. Any good known flat surface will work. my buddy uses a piece of 1/4 inch aluminum plate. It is amazing to see how imperfect your blocks are when you start to sand them. Check your flat surface with a straight edge.