I am really impressed with all the ideas that people came up with. I
usually get good advice here, but these were really good, and everyone
had a different approach. I went ahead and ordered the angle die grinder
from Enco, 801-1685, even though the information about it was sketchy,
just a tiny photo. I hope that it has a pad to accept
pressure-sensitive sanding disks in some standard size. They said that
I could return it within 30 days if I don't use it. It looks a little
on the wimpy side, but with patience I think that it would work. It
looks like a very small tool with maybe 2 inches of headroom needed, but
I will get to see it next week.
After having my eyes opened, I found some alternative approaches that no
one has yet suggested.
1. Buy a right angle adapter for a Dremel, and mount a sanding disk on
it. Micromark has 1" dia pressure sensitive disk pads with 1/8 inch
shank. (One of the problems that I found was that almost all the
sanding disk pads had 1/4 inch shanks, so incompatible with Dremels,
Foredoms, etc.).
2. Micromark has a small right angle sander with a 2 3/8 inch diameter
sanding disk. It runs on 12 volts. I would also have to buy the disks
from them, as that is not a standard size of pressure sensitive sanding
disks, at least in the USA.
3. There are 2 inch dia. air powered disk sanders available for
$300-$500 US. The ones in the MSC catalog are made by Dotco and
Dynabrade. These look like right angle die grinders with a sanding disk
pad, but appear to require less headroom than a standard right angle die
grinder with a separate disk pad. This option is rather expensive, and
I am not sure how much headroom I would pick up, so this does not look
very attractive at this point. I found one catalog that indicated a
height of 3 3/4 inch, not much better than my current 4 inch height. But
I expect that these would be powerful industrial tools. I put a lot of
hours on my current right angle die grinder with sanding disks on it,
maybe it is worth it to upgrade.
From the catalogs, it is hard to determine the actual headroom that
each tool needs, that number does not seem to be listed, so you have to
guess based on the photo and whatever other dimensions are provided.
Thanks to everyone for their thoughts, and I will watch to see what else
people think of.
Richard
Richard Ferguson wrote:
I have a recurring need to reach inside a closed space and grind a weld.
Sometimes I have enough room to get a right angle die grinder in there,
if I distort the shape, but then I have to distort the shape back, which
is kind of a pain. Sometimes there is not enough space to do that,
depending on the size. I use a 2 inch Roloc disk on the die grinder as
a kind of miniature right angle grinder. The headroom requirement for
that setup is 4 inches, more than I would like.
I was thinking that I might make a stationary tool, basically offsetting
the Roloc disk a few inches via a drive belt or chain, to reduce the
headroom required to get inside and grind the weld. The Roloc disk
mounts on a 1/4 inch shaft, so perhaps I could put two bearings and a
pulley on that 1/4 inch shaft, and then run a drive belt to the die
grinder, which would have another pulley on it, using a 1/4 inch shaft
mounted in the die grinder. The sketch at the link below should help, I
always have trouble visualizing what people describe in words, a picture
is worth a thousand words, etc.
http://fergusonsculpture.home.att.net/offset_roloc.jpg
The problem with this concept is that die grinders typically turn at
20,000 RPM. Are there any small drive belts or chains that would
survive that kinds of speeds?
Maybe there is another solution that I have not considered.
Richard
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http://www.fergusonsculpture.com
Sculptures in copper and other metals