Unless you take extraordinary measures, keeping sandpaper on a boat is just a pain in the neck. It tends to get soggy, curl up, stick together, shed its grit, and generally refuse to serve just when you need it. In recent years, woven plastic abrasive pads from 3M and others have elbowed sandpaper aside for a lot of hand-sanding, hand-abrading chores.

With so many surface-abrading products on the market, we chose a sampling of eight for testing.

Several features about the woven pads stand out. They’re hardy and don’t shed grit. They don’t tend to load up with abraded material the way sandpaper does, although they’re not immune to it. They can serve triple duty for wood, metal, and paint. They’re good for light cosmetic metal work…