Sandpaper buying guide
Updated: 21 October 2026
Two amazon.co.uk packs both claim they will get woodwork ready for paint. One says coarse, medium and fine. The other prints 60, 120 and 220. A sandpaper buying guide only helps if it tells you which label matches the job before you spend between £3.25 and £6.99. This page is that check for the six sheet packs in our [sandpaper comparison](/hub/sanders/sandpaper): printed grit, named grain, and a sheet large enough to hold flat. A qualifying purchase can earn us a commission, at no extra cost to you. We did not run a lab test.
Two amazon.co.uk packs both claim they will get woodwork ready for paint. One says coarse, medium and fine. The other prints 60, 120 and 220.
Two amazon.co.uk packs both claim they will get woodwork ready for paint. One says coarse, medium and fine. The other prints 60, 120 and 220. A sandpaper buying guide only helps if it tells you which label matches the job before you spend between £3.25 and £6.99. This page is that check for the six sheet packs in our sandpaper comparison: printed grit, named grain, and a sheet large enough to hold flat. A qualifying purchase can earn us a commission, at no extra cost to you. We did not run a lab test.
Our top picks
| Badge | Product | Grits stated | Grain | Sheet size | Note | Price | Offer |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Best overall |  Fit For The Job Fit For The Job sandpaper sheets | Coarse to fine | Silicon carbide | 230 × 280 mm | 9.2 | about £3.95 | View offer |
 STEBRUAM STEBRUAM wet and dry sandpaper | 120 to 3000 | Silicon carbide | 229 × 91 mm | 9.2 | about £6.99 | View offer | |
 AbraGoren AbraGoren mixed sandpaper sheets | 40, 80, 120 | Silicon carbide | 230 × 140 mm | 8.8 | about £4.79 | View offer |
On this page
What the number on the sheet means
The number is the depth of the scratch. A lower figure cuts deeper. ISO 6344-2:2021 covers macrogrits from P12 to P220, and ISO 6344-3:2021 covers microgrits from P240 to P5000. The P in front of the figure is the grade to read when a pack prints it. Toolstation’s UK guide puts coarse around 40–60, medium around 80–100, fine around 120–220, and very fine around 240–400. Norton’s UK page uses a similar band: about 40 to strip, 80 to sand, 120 to finish, and 180 for a smoother wood surface. Those bands are retail rules of thumb, not a promise that every medium sheet here is P80.
US CAMI numbers and European P-grades diverge above about P220, so a sheet marked 600 is not automatically P600. AbraGoren prints 40, 80 and 120. G4GADGET prints 60, 100 and 150. LowMux prints 60, 120 and 220. Harris, at £3.25, and Fit For The Job, at £3.95, only say fine, medium and coarse. Fit For The Job’s catalogue field shows 280, which conflicts with a mixed pack.
Grain, in the order you will actually use it
Aluminium oxide is the general woodworking grain on UK trade counters. None of the six packs names it, so do not assume a brown decorating sheet is that mineral because it looks familiar. Silicon carbide is the sharper grain UK guides associate with paint, metal, plastic and wet finishing. AbraGoren, Fit For The Job, LowMux and STEBRUAM list it. Emery, named on Harris and on G4GADGET, is not silicon carbide.
None of these listings states open coat or closed coat, so you cannot buy that property from this table. Waterproof is a separate claim from the mineral. Silicon carbide on Fit For The Job, AbraGoren and LowMux does not make those sheets wet and dry. Only STEBRUAM, at £6.99, says waterproof silicon carbide, from 120 to 3000 grit, on sheets about 229 × 91 mm. If the job is a cured paint spot or a small plastic repair, read that pack on the wet and dry sandpaper page.
Sheet size and how many sheets
A bigger sheet is the one you can keep flat, not an automatic upgrade. Fit For The Job’s title says 230 × 280 mm, though the dimension field says 27.9 × 22.9 cm. Harris is about 322 × 249 mm, and you only get four sheets. AbraGoren and LowMux are both 230 × 140 mm in a ten-sheet pack. STEBRUAM is 9 × 3.6 inches. Reviewers used those pieces for models, French polishing and small car-paint repairs, and said they were too small for a large flat panel.
Count the grades, not only the pieces of paper. A four-sheet Harris pack can finish a skirting patch and then run out. Forty-two STEBRUAM sheets are three of each of fourteen grits, most of them finer than a door needs. You need the two or three numbers the surface requires. How those numbers sit on timber is on the sandpaper for wood page.
What to ignore on the listing
Ignore a catalogue field that disagrees with the title. G4GADGET’s number-of-items field says 12 while the title says ten sheets: three of 60, four of 100 and three of 150. A star rating between 4.3 and 4.6 does not tell you the grit. Harris, Fit For The Job and STEBRUAM all sit at 4.6, on 496, 2,694 and 2,368 reviews, and they are three different jobs.
Also ignore a backing claim the reviews do not support. AbraGoren’s bullets say the kraft backing does not rip easily. Buyers still called the sheets flimsy and said they tear when worked hard. LowMux’s listing calls the backing tear and clog resistant, while a buyer on a wooden bench said the sheets were for light sanding and broke up. Those are review patterns, not a timed test. Under the Consumer Rights Act 2015, section 9, ordinary wear after sanding is not a defect. A pack that does not contain the grits advertised is a description problem.
Common questions
What does the P on sandpaper mean?
The P marks a FEPA coated-abrasive grade under ISO 6344. Macrogrits run from P12 to P220, and microgrits from P240 to P5000. If the pack only says coarse, medium or fine, it has not given you a P-grade you can match to a paint tin. A bare 600 is not P600.
Is coarse the same as 40 grit?
Not as a rule. Toolstation’s UK guide puts coarse around 40–60, a retail band, not a conversion printed on Harris or Fit For The Job. AbraGoren is the pack here that lists 40 grit, as three of its ten sheets.
Should I buy aluminium oxide or silicon carbide?
Buy the mineral the listing names. None of these six packs states aluminium oxide. Silicon carbide is named on AbraGoren, Fit For The Job, LowMux and STEBRUAM. Emery, on Harris and G4GADGET, is a different mineral, and the name alone does not mean waterproof.
How many grits do I need in one pack?
Two or three steps are enough for most cupboard jobs: a grit that levels the damage, then one or two finer sheets. A 42-sheet set from 120 to 3000 helps when you need grits past 400. It is a weak first buy for a door, because it starts too fine and the sheets are small.
When is a wet-and-dry set the wrong first buy?
It is the wrong first buy for a door, skirting or filler, where you need coarse paper you can hold to the wood. STEBRUAM starts at 120 grit on sheets about 229 × 91 mm. Open it first for a small cured-paint or plastic repair. The other five listings do not say the paper is waterproof.
Related pages
Sources
Sources taken from the research digest. Prices, stars and review counts are the stored amazon.co.uk listing figures.
- HSE — wood dust (retrieved 21.10.2026)
- HSE — cutting and sanding wood (retrieved 21.10.2026)
- HSE — sanding plasterboard joints (retrieved 21.10.2026)
- HSE INDG463 — silica dust (retrieved 21.10.2026)
- Consumer Rights Act 2015, section 9 (retrieved 21.10.2026)
- ISO 6344-2:2021 — macrogrits (retrieved 21.10.2026)
- ISO 6344-3:2021 — microgrits (retrieved 21.10.2026)
- Norton — choosing sandpaper (retrieved 21.10.2026)
- Toolstation — sandpaper buying guide (retrieved 21.10.2026)
- Homebuilding — sandpaper grades (retrieved 21.10.2026)