What exactly is a sand-o-flex?

[Victor Robinson]

And how does one use it?

I know it's an abrasive wheel and I've heard these are indispensable for molding. Assuming you don't have a flap sander or other such sanding attachment on a drum sander or woodmaster, how do you use this? Just chuck it in a handheld drill and run it over the moldings? Does it really work?

[Larry Frank]

You can Google it and get pictures and everything. It is a wheel with slit cloth sand paper and brushes behind the Sand paper.

It is not very aggressive. You can also use a sanding mop or Mac mop from Klingspor Woodworking. I use all of these with some of the scroll saw projects.

[Tom M King]

It works great and fast, if you can find the original refills, but it eats the sandpaper up pretty quickly. The Chinese refills are junk as you might expect. You spend more time letting the sandpaper fingers out than removing stuff with it. We use it on old moldings mainly. I don't use it to routinely sand newly made moldings, but rather stuff where sanding sponges would take too long. You need a 2500 rpm tailed drill motor to run it like it should be.

edited to add: use a full face shield, and outside on a windy day

[Larry Frank]

Maximum recommended is 2400 rpm as at higher speed throws off pieces of sanding paper.