Weekend Quickie Project: Sandpaper Hole Punch, or....Newly Invented Torture Device!

I have a Black and Decker Mouse sander with through-the-pad dust collection (link).

 

It uses pre-made hook and loop pads, and a variety of companies make pads for it.  Many of the pads you can buy come with the dust collection holes already in them, and several other fancy features including punched out replaceable pads for the tip of the sander.  These features are handy, and the replaceable tips are a nice feature since one tends to use the pointed tip on these small sanders to get in tight areas more than just general sanding.  However, because of the light weight and relatively mild vibration, I like to use this sander for sanding exposed edges and sanding in mild roundovers as well.  Under this use case, the detachable tip pads are not really relevant, and they can tend to come off during use.  The pads with detachable tips and punched holes are pretty expensive, and I recently ran across some non-perforated pads without the replaceable tip at my local Ace Hardware store.  These pads are definitely less expensive than others I have purchased, and after trying them out I found them to be durable as well.

The integrated dust collection on this sander is not particularly good, so I didn't think I would miss the holes for the through-the-pad dust collection.  But once I used the non-perforated pads for a while, I quickly found out that mediocre dust collection was still quite a bit better than none at all.  I decided to model my solution to this problem on the quarter-sheet finishing sanders that many manufacturers sell.  These sanders use regular sandpaper, and they come with a little jig to punch the dust collection holes in the paper with.  I decided I'd make my own jig for use with my Mouse sander.

The jig with my quarter-sheet sander is just made out of plastic, so I figured  sharpened wooden dowels would be sufficient to punch the holes.  Luckily I tried this before I built the jig, because that did not turn out to be the case.  What I wasn't thinking about was the fact that quarter-sheet sanders use regular sandpaper, while the Mouse uses hook-and-loop paper.  The hook and loop paper is much, much thicker and stronger than the regular paper, and stiff enough to just roll over the sharpened end of the dowel.

So I decided to make the points for my jig out of metal.  I'm not much of a metal worker, and I never have much steel on hand, so I improvised a bit.  I bought a combo pack of hangers for my under-utilized pegboard space in my shop a long time ago.  It came with a number of very useful hangers, and also several useless ones.  In particular, I got four of these shelf-bracket type hangers that you can use to make a narrow shelf hanging from your pegboard.

I've never used these, and don't plan to, so I cut a couple of them up to scavenge the steel rod with my angle grinder using a cutoff blade.

Then I sharpen both ends of the pieces, using my bench grinder.  I just hold the piece at an angle and rotate it to create a point.

From there I create a simple jig to mark a consistent length on the sharpened rods and cut off a set of same-sized points.  The jig is just a board with a hole the depth that I want the points to be.  I just stick the rod in the jig and hold a fine-tipped sharpie against it and rotate the rod.

Then I cut to my marks with my angle grinder, and clean up the rough ends with the bench grinder.  I then transfer the hole locations onto a scrap of three-quarter inch mdf and drill them as close to the diameter of the rod as I can.  I traced the shape of the sanding pad onto the mdf, cut it out roughly on the bandsaw, and cleaned up the shape on the disc sander.  I then put just a little polyurethane construction adhesive in the holes with a splint of wood.  I also dipped the ends of the rods in the glue for good measure, and stick them in the holes and pound them in with a board and hammer.

What is this thing?  I think I've invented a new medieval-style torture device!  Tell me what you know, pine.  Oak did it, didn't he?  Or was it poplar?

Since this jig is so obviously dangerous, I decide to make a cover for the exposed pins.  I just make a copy of the pad shape out of mdf, and drill slightly oversized holes for clearance.

It turns out to be a good thing, as well, because it takes a surprising amount of force to punch the paper, and the cover allows me to put the paper in between the jig and the cover, and put the whole thing in the vice to punch the paper.

I'm happy with the results.  It allows me to use cheaper sanding pads, and still get some level of dust collection.  If you find this useful, drop me a comment or email!