Dcal
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- 3,848
- Location
- Antrim Northern Ireland
I've been interested in surface preparation tools for a while but wasn't fully convinced.
Then a friend lent me his to see what I thought of it.
I was impressed.
It's a very useful tool.
Quiet, light weight, low speed, low vibration and it can clean rusty steel pretty quickly.
This is the weapon in question, it's the 110v version, 600 watts and has a free speed of about 3.5K rpm.
The feature that sets this tool apart from a wire brush in a grinder is the accelerator bar which interrupts the motion of the sprung steel wires filaments in the brush before letting them go to accelerate and hit the surface of the material at about 90 degrees.
This gives a rough finish that is close to SA2.5 and perfect for painting as opposed to the polished finish you get if you use a wire brush on rusty steel.
The down side is the cost.
A kit with the tool, accessories and 10 belts is well over £1000 at retail prices.
Also the belts don't last long and you need to sharpen them by running them backwards against a stone to keep them working well.
One belt is supposed to do 1m2 odd of rusty steel to SA2.5 and it should take under an hour, but it will depend on the steel and the amount of rust.
I think £20 an hour (or per m2) for consumables is a lot and it doesn’t compare that well with blasting.
However there are times when blasting can’t be done or where the clean-up is more bother than it’s worth, like when it’s only for a small amount of blasting or you don't want grit getting into every orifice.
Also if you do most of the clean up by other means, for example, with a standard wire brush and do the final prep with the surface prep tool you can probably reduce your consumables spend at the expense of you own time.
Anyway, I think it’s a nice addition to the tool box and it's not the first tool I've had an irrational need to own, however there is no way I can justify the cost for my DIY use.
Second hand prices are still expensive so I decided to see if I could make one on the cheap.
I considered modifying a grinder to get the speed down and looked at belt sanders but while looking for something else I found a slow speed burnishing tool on the bay of thieves which sounded like it would do the trick.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/KATSU-Wi...lisher-220V-/282515183047?hash=item41c73795c7
I bought a second-hand one to save a few quid.
It turned out the threads where the handle screws in was stripped so I contacted the seller and got another £15 off so I was happy enough. Two helicoils later and it's as good as new.
It ended up costing me £35
This is what arrived
The burnishing head looked useful so instead of butchering the existing spindle I decided to make one from scratch.
I've already posted some details of the built on the forum but @Exuptoy asked if there was a build thread so this is it.
I did make a meal out of this and tried to make far too much but as usual I used it as a learing exercise and to see if I could.
The only bit I think you need to make is the spindle and as said it would be easier to mod the one in the tool.
I've a wee lathe so I made this.
Just to be awkward the nut needs to be 9mm across the the flats if it's to fit the standard heads, so using a nut as a guide I hand filed flats so it would fit.
So far so straight forward, but I came unstuck when I tried to cut a Woodruff key slot using a home-made cutter made out of a bolt with a carbide parting tool brazed to it.
I don't have a mill, but I do have a milling attachment for the lathe that I rigged up and tried out for the first time.
It did not go well.
Instead of giving up and accepting my limitations I ordered a 13.5 x 4mm £12 cutter from Chronos to see if that would work.
I should have started from scratch with a new spindle (I probably will) but instead filled my mess up with braze and tried out the new cutter.
The results from this was good enough for a trial run.
It seemed to run fine so I could go on to the next bit of the build.
Then a friend lent me his to see what I thought of it.
I was impressed.
It's a very useful tool.
Quiet, light weight, low speed, low vibration and it can clean rusty steel pretty quickly.
This is the weapon in question, it's the 110v version, 600 watts and has a free speed of about 3.5K rpm.
The feature that sets this tool apart from a wire brush in a grinder is the accelerator bar which interrupts the motion of the sprung steel wires filaments in the brush before letting them go to accelerate and hit the surface of the material at about 90 degrees.
This gives a rough finish that is close to SA2.5 and perfect for painting as opposed to the polished finish you get if you use a wire brush on rusty steel.
The down side is the cost.
A kit with the tool, accessories and 10 belts is well over £1000 at retail prices.
Also the belts don't last long and you need to sharpen them by running them backwards against a stone to keep them working well.
One belt is supposed to do 1m2 odd of rusty steel to SA2.5 and it should take under an hour, but it will depend on the steel and the amount of rust.
I think £20 an hour (or per m2) for consumables is a lot and it doesn’t compare that well with blasting.
However there are times when blasting can’t be done or where the clean-up is more bother than it’s worth, like when it’s only for a small amount of blasting or you don't want grit getting into every orifice.
Also if you do most of the clean up by other means, for example, with a standard wire brush and do the final prep with the surface prep tool you can probably reduce your consumables spend at the expense of you own time.
Anyway, I think it’s a nice addition to the tool box and it's not the first tool I've had an irrational need to own, however there is no way I can justify the cost for my DIY use.
Second hand prices are still expensive so I decided to see if I could make one on the cheap.
I considered modifying a grinder to get the speed down and looked at belt sanders but while looking for something else I found a slow speed burnishing tool on the bay of thieves which sounded like it would do the trick.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/KATSU-Wi...lisher-220V-/282515183047?hash=item41c73795c7
I bought a second-hand one to save a few quid.
It turned out the threads where the handle screws in was stripped so I contacted the seller and got another £15 off so I was happy enough. Two helicoils later and it's as good as new.
It ended up costing me £35
This is what arrived
The burnishing head looked useful so instead of butchering the existing spindle I decided to make one from scratch.
I've already posted some details of the built on the forum but @Exuptoy asked if there was a build thread so this is it.
I did make a meal out of this and tried to make far too much but as usual I used it as a learing exercise and to see if I could.
The only bit I think you need to make is the spindle and as said it would be easier to mod the one in the tool.
I've a wee lathe so I made this.
Just to be awkward the nut needs to be 9mm across the the flats if it's to fit the standard heads, so using a nut as a guide I hand filed flats so it would fit.
So far so straight forward, but I came unstuck when I tried to cut a Woodruff key slot using a home-made cutter made out of a bolt with a carbide parting tool brazed to it.
I don't have a mill, but I do have a milling attachment for the lathe that I rigged up and tried out for the first time.
It did not go well.
Instead of giving up and accepting my limitations I ordered a 13.5 x 4mm £12 cutter from Chronos to see if that would work.
I should have started from scratch with a new spindle (I probably will) but instead filled my mess up with braze and tried out the new cutter.
The results from this was good enough for a trial run.
It seemed to run fine so I could go on to the next bit of the build.