We all hate paying high prices for sandpaper. Not long before school, I ordered 4 boxes of 50 sheets of finish sanding paper and 4 boxes of 1" X 50' of cloth backed sanding tape from Klingspor Abrasives. The bill was $127.00!! Of course, it's good, high quality stuff that I use in progressive grits to get a nice, smooth hand rubbed finish on my knives. The sheets are wet/dry so it lasts a long time when I use water. For a nice shiney finish, I use 2,000 grit dry and it just gets nicer and nicer the longer you rub. The sanding tape is used for the handle, gaurd and pommel using the shoe shine method all the way to a 1,000 grit finish.

While I was at school in the handles and guards class I learned how to use the cheapest sandpaper (from Wal-Mart) and get good mileage out of it. Just lay your sheet face down on a clean workbench and tape a strip of duct tape to a long edge. While you're at it, just cover the entire back side of the sandpaper with strips of duct tape. Then just fold along the seams between the tape and tear it off a strip at a time. Use that for the shoe shine and sanding block method and see what happens. This works well with even the cheapest paper backed sandpaper. Things that make you say DUH!