OK Ken, I'll take a shot at it.
Ken Landaiche wrote:
>
> A friend who frequents flea markets gave me a couple of tools I am wondering
> about. One is an old looking electric paint polisher, single action, with
> wool pads. An acquaintance who looked at it said that type tends to burn
> paint. Its label says:
>
> 7" Polisher
> For Intermittent Use
> Sioux Tools
> Cat No 1202
Sounds like a paint polisher which takes 7" pads (no duh). Older versions are
single
speed versions operating around 3000 rpm. Newer units tend to have electronic
spped
control. Milwakee and Makita have units with speed control from about 0 to
3000 rpm
and 1500 to 3000 rpm. The reason for the spped control is - yup, it is easier
to
burn the paint at higher rpm. Burning is really a misnomer, it is more of a
melt
process, but it still damages the paint. At 3000 rpm, if the edge of the pad
makes
firm contact with the paint, damage can occur almost immedtately. Sioux is an
excellent brand name for high quality tools.
> The other tool is an air driven linear sander. If it has bearings on each
> side of the bed, one side's bearings appear to be shot. At least when I bias
> the sanding bed to that side, it gets noisy and rough. Its label reads:
>
> Central Pneumatic
> Stock No. 280
> Straight Line Sander
> Made in Taiwan
I opened up one straight line sander and found no ball bearings in the linear
mechanism. Instead there was a sliding metal, greased interface between the
body and
the pad. When I cleaned and regreased these parts my sander worked better.
You
might want to try it. It wasn't tricky to do except for aligning the
counterweight
(difficult to explain, but clear enough if you see it). The purpose of this
tool:
as far as I know it is used pretty exclusively for auto body work. Primarily
with
shaping body filler (ie: Bondo). After applying the body filler you wait, oh
maybe
20 minutes, then take a surfoam (aka cheese grater) file and rough shape the
plastic.
Wait until the plastic fully hardens and do over it with the inline with 36 to
80
grit paper. The benefit of a long, straight line sander is it allows one to
shape
straight flat panels.
-Roger
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