Hi all-

I have a big 2-handed Bosch 8-hole sander and use a shop vac for dust collection. It's pretty good at collecting dust on flats, but not so good on curved surfaces. The last time I was at my supplier they were out of the traditional paper-backed disks I usually use, so I thought I'd try the Abranet mesh sanding disks by Mirka. They were the same price, and they threw in the special backing pad you need to use the mesh for free because I bought a couple of boxes.

Here's what I found out- the box says "Dust-free sanding" and they actually were, even on the curves of a kayak. The amount of dust left on the surface of my kayak was about the same as if I'd gone over it with a quick pass from the shop vac with a brush attachment. I had some traditional Mirka Gold paper disks in finer grits that I used after the mesh, and they confirmed that there was not some magic happening with my sander and vac that was unrelated to the abrasive type. To be fair, I cleaned out my Gore-Tex Cleanstream filter and tried the paper-backed disks again and there was no improvement.

As far as the rest of the performance- they do not stay sharp as long as paper disks. They only seemed to last about 2/3 as long. The hook-and-loop backing on them tended to wear out as well. If I ran my sander at full speed, a few times the combination of the torque of the sander and the abrasive on the mesh was able to overcome the bond of the backing and they spun right off from the backing pad. It seemed to me that the surface finish I got from them was better than from paper of the same grit, but it's hard to tell if this is because the dust was evacuated so thoroughly it actually did a better job, or if it just LOOKED like it had a better finish because there was no dust on it.

All-in-all, I would continue to use them and will pick up the other grits as I run out of the paper-backed. Beyond the fact that I have asthma and even with a mask reducing the dust in my shop is a good thin. Stopping it at the source is always better than having to vacuum all of the horizontal surfaces in the shop to get all of the sanding dust that escapes the shop vac.

Build good boats, and paddle a lot.

m