Angle Grinder Brush For Removing Paint

How to Choose a Rough Brush Rough brushes are used to remove old paint, rust and welding scale, clean plastic parts, treat wood surfaces to

Wire type

angle grinder brush for removing paint

The bristles of a roughing brush are of several types: straight, twisted, or corrugated wire.
Twisted wire affects the surface harder than others and has the greatest resource. It retains the shape of the brush longer, breaks less. The twisted wire in the process of work is gradually unwound, freeing the bristles for work.

Further, according to the degree of rigidity, the corrugated bristle form follows, which has less abrasive properties than twisted wire. Features of such brushes: soft effect on metal due to the springy properties of corrugated wire and less vibration of the tool during operation.

How to choose a roughing brush

Types, forms and purpose of braces

Rough brushes are used to remove old paint, rust and welding scale from surfaces, sand plastic parts, treat wood surfaces to emphasize the structure of wood, and even for preparatory finishing work, such as removing finishing materials from bricks and concrete.
We will figure out what kind of brushes are in shape and material, what kind of power tool you can work with and how to choose a brush for solving a specific task.

The first thing they are guided by when choosing a cord brush is where it will be used.
A hard bristle of a roughing brush is required for working with hard materials: old or mechanically resistant paints and enamels, welding scale, high density finishing materials. But there are many tasks that require a more delicate approach and different softness of the brush pile material.

Rough brush diameter

The smaller the diameter of the disc, conical or cup roughing brush, the less the tool motor is loaded and less vibration is transmitted.
The larger diameter of the brush allows for a shorter working time: fewer passes to clean a specific element.

Best discs for removing old paint and rust.

Not even necessarily old, maybe new paint. If you painted and you have the wrong color.

Cleaning metal surfaces before painting, before welding, after painting in case of defects. These are tasks that you regularly have to perform in industries or in small workshops. In addition, you may need to perform such work even in everyday life, for example, when repairing a summer house, bal-KON, or it may be related to a hobby.

And we have several most effective solutions for this, and today we will tell you about the advantages and features of each of these products.

But before talking about them, let’s pay a little attention to those methods that are already used today. This will enable us to better see the benefits of specialty products.

Petal circle.

The flap wheel is not originally a surface cleaning solution. It is designed for removing metal or other materials and has a special structure and properties of the abrasive grain itself. When performing non-standard tasks for it, removing paint and rust, the flap wheel is easily “clogged” with grinding products and can no longer do its job.

Over, it can be practically not worn out. And when the circle is still new, after cleaning the paint and reaching the metal, it will “gnaw” it too, which will spoil the geometry of the product surface. Therefore, such a circle can be considered not the best option for cleaning old paint. While it will handle thick dross well in some cases, it will do well on pure metal.

Metal brushes.

This is a product intended for cleaning surfaces from various coatings, such as rust and paint or scale. There is a wide variety of shapes and types of brushes depending on the type of work. Angle grinder brushes are made of corrugated wire or braided.

The former are rather soft and clean the metal more delicately; they can better approach uneven surfaces or welds.

Bundle brushes are more aggressive, they better clean hard surfaces, but they are less elastic and more difficult to pick up in irregularities.

But with all possible combinations, metal brushes cannot always provide the required surface quality and remove the required layer of coating if it is especially hard.

For efficient operation, the brushes require high revolutions, and in combination with a large (compared to KLT) weight, this generates a high level of vibration, which does not have a favorable effect on the operator during prolonged work.

Aside from comfort, metal brushes are not the safest way to do our jobs. Even from the highest quality and most expensive brushes, a wire flies out during operation, periodically clinging to the sharp edges of the product. And flying out of such parts can easily injure the operator, or at least cause discomfort.

These are two common options for solving the described problem:

  • The first is used because it is often already at hand and does not require additional steps and costs to acquire it.
  • The second, because it is affordable and effective enough for use in the household or small workshops.

And now we will tell you about the wheels for removing rust and paint from the field of professional use.

Overview of grinding and grinding wheels for an angle grinder

Removing paint from walls or metal surfaces, as well as removing rust, takes a lot of effort and time. Therefore, it is sometimes impossible to do without the use of a power tool. As a device to facilitate the process, you can use an angle grinder (angle grinder) with special grinding attachments.

Paint Remover Tips

Old paint most often has to be removed from either walls or metal surfaces. In each case, different types of angle grinder attachments are used.

From metal surfaces

For roughing work on metal, whether it is removing a layer of old paint or removing rust, craftsmen use corsets. They look like a brush made of twisted or non-twisted metal wire inserted into a metal glass, or a disc made of the same wire.

Depending on the quality of the roughing work you want to carry out, the thickness and hardness of the brushes are selected. It should be borne in mind that the metal wire used in brushes leaves scratches on the treated surface. Therefore, it is better not to use them to remove paint, for example, from a car body. They can only be useful for removing rust and paintwork from hard-to-reach places.

For metal-friendly roughing it is better to use special circles made of silicone carbide fibers (XCS). They are usually black. Also, for these purposes, Clean and Strip discs, which are more resistant to wear, are used. They are blue in color, have a similar structure, but are composed of nylon threads.

This grinding wheel is available in 2 versions: for a drill and for an angle grinder. Its distinctive feature from other types of nozzles for removing paint from metal is that it does not clog and does not damage the metal in the form of scratches. They also successfully remove welding spatter, rust, various sealants and anti-corrosion coatings.

Often they use petal nozzles for angle grinder. They represent a disk with sandpaper in the form of petals glued to its plane.

For rough surface treatment, nozzles with a large grain size are used. For finishing work, it is necessary to select a grinding wheel with fine sandpaper. Although this sanding disc will wear out quickly and become clogged with remnants of stripped paint, it can be easily repaired. How this is done can be understood from this

Need for invention is cunning. User tip

The creative thinking of our people knows no boundaries. This recommendation, aimed at improving the performance of the brushes, was found on the forums of the masters.

Everyone knows that the bristles of a grinding attachment wear off over time, and this rate of wear depends on the stiffness of the bristles and the aggressiveness of the surface to be treated. In some brushes, the outer cup is larger than the inner one, which allows you to extend the life of the brush by a little, by 15 percent. This can be achieved by cutting off the top edge of the outer brush cup by 5–7 mm.

What kind of brushes are there?

Metal, bowl-shaped corsets appeared relatively recently. And before that, grinders worked mainly with different types of sandpaper or sanding stone discs. Paper, no matter how high their rigidity, quickly clogged with paint particles or was erased. It often had to be changed, which reduced work productivity. Working with a metal brush for an angle grinder is much more efficient in this regard.

Virtually every leading tool manufacturer has seen fit to bring their brushes onto the market. And each manufacturer has its own approach, its own exclusive in the development and manufacture of metal attachments for an angle grinder. Some braces are made from a single thin wire, others from a twisted cable, and others from a corrugated corrugated wire. Wire cord brushes differ in diameter, stiffness, bristle quality. The brushes as attachments for the angle grinder are:

  1. Cup
  2. Disk

Metal brushes are made from:

  • Become;
  • Brass plated steel;
  • Brass;
  • Copper.

There are polishing brushes for metal surfaces and woodworking. They are made from nylon and other polymers, dried seaweed, cotton fibers.

The rigidity of processing depends on the structure of the wire, its hardness and thickness. The thinner the wire used in the manufacture of the brace, the softer it acts on the metal. To clean the surface of old paint at the initial stage, it is better to use a nozzle with a stiff bristle, and for the final cleaning of the remnants of primer and other materials, a nozzle with a lower rigidity is suitable, which will not “eat” the bare metal.

Wire is used for the manufacture of corsets:

  • Corrugated. This brush, due to its springy properties, softens, on the one hand, the impact on the metal, and on the other hand, reduces the vibration of the machine.
  • Twisted. The bristles twisted together ensure the rigidity of the impact on the surface, break less and fly out as they wear out. The twisted fragments unwind, freeing the bristles for work.
  • Smooth.

Brushes differ in the diameter of the cup, which determines the parameters of the simultaneously processed surface. Angle grinder braces are consumables, but manufacturers are concerned about making them as efficient as possible and extending their lifespan.

How to choose a quality brush?

When choosing a brush for an angle grinder, pay attention to the bristles. It should be evenly distributed over the entire disc, the bristles should be the same length everywhere and evenly distributed around the entire circumference of the cup. It is unacceptable when the bristles are thick on one edge and thin on the other. Such a brush will hit the hand (vibrate), cleaning will be performed unevenly, and the brush itself will fail very soon.

Among the parameters for the wire nozzle, manufacturers indicate the recommended speed for the machine. This indicator should not be ignored. If you put the low speed brush on a high speed machine, it will not give the desired result and will quickly fail. Conversely, a metal brush, which the manufacturer has developed for operation at high speeds, at low speeds will not work with the proper performance.

The smaller the diameter of the cup, the less load on the machine motor, less vibration, and, accordingly, less hand fatigue. But the larger the diameter of the cup, the fewer passages are obtained. Which brush should you choose? There is no definite answer here. Sometimes craftsmen have time to try several brushes of different diameters and different bristle stiffness before they find the best option. The choice of the brush often depends on the quality of the paintwork. After all, as you know, different enamels and primers have different coating density.

How to clean the fence from paint / rust. Foam abrasive disc against metal brush

Comparative overview of paint / rust cleaning wheel and classic wire brush for drill / angle grinder.

When autumn comes, many people talk about the time to clean the fence from rust, old paint, and paint over a new one. But how to remove the old paint? There are several options.

Some people “the old fashioned way” heat the paint with a gas burner or a building hairdryer and clean it off. Someone uses abrasive paper attachments. Someone uses a hand brush, and someone acquires a metal brush attachment for an angle grinder (in the common people, an angle grinder) or a drill. But there is another way and I came across it on YouTube. There is a special disc for the angle grinder, which is excellently found on request “foam disc”. There are several brands, my choice fell on the cheapest (Ukrainian, a reason for pride? Let’s see) company. Polystar Abrasive. The firm does not knit brooms, the firm “knits” discs for the angle grinder.

I have an angle grinder from Dnipro-M. I will not say the exact model, but the power is 1250 W, when working with this nozzle, 2-3 speeds were used. Please note that this disc does not fit into the protective casing, therefore, you need to be very careful when using this attachment. In my case, this was the first scratch I received (I can’t call my tongue a trauma) when working with a typewriter. The disc has a standard diameter of 125 mm, and is about 2 cm thick (by eye, it fits flush into the casing).

The very structure of the disk can be seen in the photo below. Despite the visual sensation, it is solid, somewhat reminiscent of a pumice stone for the heels.

The attachments themselves come in two colors. Black and purple. As the seller explained, one is tougher, the other is softer. I did not feel the difference, perhaps it all depends on what to clean with them. And we cleaned the following.

There is an old fence, which, as it were, is not a sin to change, and there is no money for AL-KO, because it costs. There are three or four layers of paint (white, yellow, red in places green), which makes itself felt visually. I didn’t want to smear it with another layer and the idea came to clean it under a clean one (up to metal) and cover with one single layer. Therefore, the task was a little more difficult than removing one layer of conditionally fresh and high-quality paint from the metal. Perhaps that is why it took me one to clean only thin rods! (yes, Karl, one) a circle at the price of 140 UAH (about 5 USD). For clarity, here is the cleaned area (circled in red):

The entire fence will take (probably) two discs. How many? Depends on your time. From the point of view of saving this parameter, such attachments have proven themselves more than a conventional metal brush for a drill. It’s hard for me to say whether I would recommend them or not. Perhaps not for such a fence, because it’s still a lot of wasted time. For some more useful areas where you need to clean the metal of old paint and rust, the option is quite good.

The second test subject is a brush drill.

The option (in truth) is more budgetary and durable, but as you will see further on, it is not always practical when you need to clean a large area of ​​paint. At the same time, small elements are more accessible to him due to closer contact, which cannot be said about the option of using a disc-angle grinder.

To summarize, I would say that both options are more likely to complement each other, due to which the work is done faster and better. To the question “is a disc with a price of 140 hryvnias capable of solving all the issues of cleaning from paint?”. likely no than yes. On tests of such disks on the Internet, a flat, homogeneous surface covered with one layer of paint is used, in my case, more realistic conditions when you need to clean the old gate or fence posts. Thin elements of this nozzle are poorly / difficult to clean, but at the same time, comparing it with an emery nozzle, the metal itself is not partially erased, that is, the surface is not ground, which is undoubtedly a plus.

If you need speed of work, these discs are your option, if the volume is large and there are many small elements, it may be easier with a metal brush.

Below is a comparison of the performance of an angle grinder with a wonder disc versus a drill with a wire brush.

Important!

My favorite is quality. There were two disks. Black and purple. The first was normal, the second was with a kind of “beating” (the feeling that the balance was disturbed and the angle grinder jerked when working with it). On I also tried to display this, it didn’t work out very well. But in my case, one of the two miracle disks was defective (an attempt to re-attach it to the instrument did not give results, hence the problem with the scratch disk itself). It is impossible to check this somehow at the purchase stage, so this moment should be taken into account.

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