Poor Man's Flap Wheel

myminifactory

Flapwheels are pretty neat. Depending on the grit they can remove material fast, or finish a surface quickly. They can be used on irregular shapes, curves, holes and other places where conventional powersanding tools have a hard time getting to. They last a fair while, too. Problem is, those things average at 5-10$ per piece, which is quite expensive even if they last a while. So I figured, let's make a simple poor man's version which uses regular sandpaper. Sure, the given design doesn't remove as much material as quickly, nor does it last as long as a proper flapwheel, but it's a heck of a lot cheaper. For the price of one real flapwheel you can print one or two of these poor man's flapwheels AND get at least half a dozen sheets of sandpaper which you can use with this contraption. It'll take longer to use, but it's definitely cheaper. So what I designed here is basically a clamp using two M3 nuts and two M3x10mm countersunk screws to clamp a folded piece of sandpaper and which you can chuck into a drill. Super simple to use and works quite well. Pros: Super cheap Can be used in forward and reverse, unlike traditional flapwheels which can only go in one direction Because it only has two fans and they're rather flexible, you can spin it up and 'dive' into a hole, not only sanding the inside but automatically chamfering the edge Cons: Less sandpaper fans, so it's slower than traditional flapwheels Changing the sandpaper takes a minute and needs a screwdriver Need to prepare replacement sandpaper pieces