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An electric toothbrush as a small sander? Yes!

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A7er:
OK, get the laughing out of the way, this idea works! The toothbrush I used was an Oral B Pulsar. I also tried a toothbrush with a circular head that oscillates from side to side, that didn't work. I started to cut the bristles from the Oral B before realizing I could hot melt glue the sanding platern (a bit of lolly stick) to the back. The sandpaper is stuck on with double sided tape. At first I only used it for sanding small areas of filler on my PLA 3D prints. But it will also sand the PLA itself. I use various grades of sandpaper to suit the job. Just use gentle pressure to produce fine dust, and it gets into those difficult areas. I use small files for the initial surface preparation.
Lee.

BillTodd:
That's a great idea ! A small sander would be bloody useful for resin prints .

A7er:
I came up with the idea when I had to sand the spokes on a PLA printed flywheel some time ago. I was very surprised it even worked. On PLA I still use files to remove the worst of the layer lines but then switch to the toothbrush with 320 grade wet or dry. A coat pf primer then shows the bits I missed. It also works very well on filler to hard to reach areas. If I could have bought a small electric sander for about £15 I wouldn't have tried this. I did think of trying a different way to mount the sandpaper to make it easier to change from one grit to another. It works very well with resin prints, no filing required.
Lee

mklotz:
For some small detail work I've made sub-miniature Dremel/Foredom sanders by attaching sandpaper to the heads of carpentry nails (approximately 0.25" diameter).  I punch the sandpaper disks from standard size (~5" diameter) self-stick sanding disks, thus avoiding the need to mess about with glue.

Some pictures here...

https://www.homemadetools.net/forum/ultra-tiny-sanding-disk-73639

A7er:
Thanks for the link Marv. I have looked at the Dremel you've listed on your post on the homemade tools website, it looks a bit easier to use than mine.

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