Sanding Disk Storage

 At a recent wood show I got into conversation with the Canadian Minwax product demonstrator Ralph Swann about sand paper. I have seem Ralph at shows for 10 years, watched his product demonstrations and have huge respect for what he has to say.  It is Ralph's opinion that as sand paper goes through the damp and drying cycles we experience in our basement work shops in Ontario that the effectiveness of the abrasive is reduced.  

   I expect that he is correct.  It does seem as though the disks don't last as long as they get older.  Since I am cheap I tried to think of a good solution to this issue without having to go out and buy 5 and 10 packs of sanding disks all the time and lose the volume discount that comes from buying disks 50 at a time.

  This is my solution, a coffee can with a tight fitting lid.

this is my storage container, stacked with about 100 disk, 80,120,220,320 grit

    I placed about 3/4 inch of Flower Drying silica gel in the bottom of the tin and put a few left over corks on top for the disks to sit upon. I don't like the idea of the disks sitting on the silica, if nothing else I didn't want it to be on the disk and scratch my work.

 

 This package is left over from drying flowers from a wedding a year ago.  I truly don't know what it cost but I know that I have at least one life time's supply since it can be dried out and used over and over again.

My next project is to find a couple of large flat, air tight boxes for my sand paper sheets.