Does anyone here use sanding flap wheels?

[Edwin Santos]

I've seen these in catalogs and I think I saw them mentioned in a FWW article but I'm unclear on where and when you would use a flap wheel for woodworking. Curved or profiled surfaces? Flat surfaces? Both? In a drill press or a hand held drill?

Any insight appreciated.
Thanks

[Ray Selinger]

I put mine on an arbor. I bought it for curved. It tends to sand out the softer sections of wood, between the growth lines.

[Mel Fulks]

Used one for one purpose ,that was to just barely brush the wide almost flat part of curved shaper made "colonial casing".Had to make it often. There is an old thread about them. Seems to be nitch thing ,never heard anyone say they are a versatile "must have".

[Yonak Hawkins]

I use a Sand-Rite model B-12 on a buffing wheel spindle for sanding round-overs on the curves where the grain is kicked up.

[Lee Schierer]

I bought one years ago. I used it a couple of times. Basically what I noticed was the ends of each strip did some sanding for a short time, but the majority of the sandpaper never touched the wood. Once the end 1/4 inch or so wears out the flapper is useless.

[Jerry Wright]

Used often on routed picture frame concave shapes on woods that fluff a bit.. Mounted on drill press spindle. Works great.

[glenn bradley]

The De-Petlor Quatro -

354045

Used for sanding profiles and details. Unlike something like the Sand Rite, sanding mops do not remove a lot of material and are mainly for smoothing difficult profiles without fouling the appearance. More commonly used like so:

354046

[Bradley Gray]

I use 1" shaft mounted 4" x 12"dia Mac Mop wheels from Klingspor. I have 100 and 180 grit. I use these to follow sanding on 9" x 6"dia air filled drums.

I sand most furniture components this way. Fast and clean - dust collector gets the dust and even leaves the work dust free.

[Jason Grogg]

I used one recently for inside corners on a shuffleboard table build. I had kerf cut some walnut to bend around radius corners. Had filled kerfs with gorilla glue and sanded smooth with flap wheel after setting up. No complaints.

[Perry Holbrook]

Sand Rite says that 1200rpm is as fast as you should run their flap head. While at the tool show in Atlanta several years ago, I asked a couple of vendors that sell flap heads to industry and they said 600 to 1200 rpm. Using that info, I built one with a 1 hp DC voltage motor with a variable speed drive and mounted a Sand Rite head. I built another with a double spindle driven by belt with a VFD/motor combination. On that one I mounted a Klingspor Mac Mop and another off brand brush head that has brushes similar to the Sand Rite head. Each has it's own purpose.

In addition I have a smaller stacked sandpaper flutter head mounted on another DC motor/VFD drive. That one is used with 180 grit to buff between coats of lacquer.

All of these were used in my small scale production of small boxes and were a necessity to keep the sanding labor to a minimum.

I also use them for buffing metal work before finishing.

Perry

[Dave Macy]

I use them on grinders all the time for metal. There's nothing better for that but I would never use it on wood.

[Keith Westfall]

Made one - not sure I'll do that again! Cut some emery paper into strips (pretty hard on hacksaw blades) and mounted them on an arbor, (with a shaft that fit a furnace motor shaft) and mounted it to a support. use it all the time.

Softens edges, sands curves, will even polish up end grain a bit. I find it gives a 'soft' edge as opposed to any of my other sanders.

Couldn't be without it now...

[Yonak Hawkins]

Cut some emery paper into strips (pretty hard on hacksaw blades)....

My wife is a former nurse and one day she came home with a pair of shears that are great for cutting sandpaper. They are titanium shears by Clauss (http://www.etsy.com/listing/456133586/) and they cut sandpaper with ease without ever seeming to dull. They're handy and pretty inexpensive.

[Jim Tobias]

I use these all the time from Klingspor.....in several different grits. They seem to do a really good job on small pieces and or odd shapes. I imagine that it mostly depends on what type of work you are doing.

Jim



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