Sanding Tiny Pieces

Ditto to both the small file and seam scraping.  Scraping is becoming a lost art these days.  I learned to scrape in a woodworking class in grade school.  And machinists use it to smooth out metal surfaces.  It is fine on larger parts too.  I use it as a goto for fuselage seams.

I keep a 45 degree blade chucked in an X-acto handle- the 45 blade resists breaking the point off vs the #11 blade.  To scrape, I like using the sharp edge held about 85 degrees to surface of part.

From a different angle, is your sand paper doing enough? There are 2 parts of sanding, either or both surfaces should offer resistence, or you get rather poor efficiency. I hardly ever use sand paper nowadays, my go to is a fine file. I've been using the flat file out of the hasegawa modelling file set for more than 10 years, and still does what it needs to do just fine. 

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I estimate it about 600 grit and far more consistent than sand paper/never needed replacing. Which, for most surfaces without having to do any additional smoothing before painting. 

Also, for a small part, what are you trying to file? If it's a seam, it's easier to scrap it level with either side of a used hobby blade. If it's a injection nub, trim it enough with a knife before having to sand it, rather than sanding most of it off (not efficient). 

I use a small machinist's vise to hold such parts.  I use a set of miniatur files instead of sandpaper.

Hello!

What Capn' wrote reminds me of my plan to light the underside of my workbench with a LED strip that would turn on and off together with my regular working light. That would help with searching for the lost parts, but it would also help greatly with tracking the fall which is an important factor.

BUT let's try some prevention, too!

Sometimes it helps to glue the part to a subassembly and then sand it - this is not always possible, of course...

And there's one more tool nobody mentioned yet, jewellers use it a lot:

I have one of those and it does a good job. It has two pairs of leather lined jaws - straight and curved. You tighten it with a wedge and so it doesn't tend catapult parts the way tweezers do.

Hope it helps - have a nice day

Paweł

A bright, very nright, flashlight held flat to the floor can help find lost items, as the long shadows will reveal tiny things.

Sometimes.

Your Mileage May Vary.

When working on very small parts, I have a carpenters apron that has a velcro strip across the entire bottom edge. The corresponding piece of velcro is under the edge of the workbench. The plan is to catch the errant piece before it gets to the carpet monster. It's "almost" foolproof. Lately though, I've stuck to scraping with a #11 blade instead of sanding very small parts. Still use the apron though. 

Jim 

Stay Safe.

I have a set of smooth-jawed hemostats that works great for holding tiny photo-etched parts while I file the little attaching nibs off them.  For tiny plastic parts, instead of sanding, I trim them with a #11 blade after pushing them down onto a piece of double-sided Scotch tape on my tempered glass cutting matt.

Similar to TB, I use a pair of cross-lock beading tweezers. The flat jaws each have a tiny bowl-shaped depression that will work to grab a surprising range of small part shapes and hold them reasonably firmly. Sanding must be done with care...a number 11 X-acto blade can also be used for seam cleaning and such.

Thanks everyone!

Tanker-Builder

Aha!

      Now this is something I can get a bite on. I have modified three pairs of Tweezers to do this. All are special anyway. One is for stamps( Flat slightly angled tips),One is for beads ( narrow tip with hemispehrical cutouts in the Jaws) and one is right angled and wide tipped. These have 320 grit sanding paper glued to them for holding those pesky teensy parts. 

Interesting, so you use the gritted-tweezers to help hold the pieces while you are sanding it?

Aha!

      Now this is something I can get a bite on. I have modified three pairs of Tweezers to do this. All are special anyway. One is for stamps( Flat slightly angled tips),One is for beads ( narrow tip with hemispehrical cutouts in the Jaws) and one is right angled and wide tipped. These have 320 grit sanding paper glued to them for holding those pesky teensy parts. 

Do it in an open box lid. It helps. also get used to crawling around on the floor and while doing it, you'll have some thoughts like maybe a smooth surface?

Bill

I have a friend who spreads out an old white sheet below his work station to catch those errant pieces before the carpet can get hold of them.

And as far as the sanding goes .  .  . tweezers or hemostats to grip .  .  . I've tried a number of things but it varies by the shape of the 'piece'. And I use emory boards (two different grits) rather than something larger.