TOPIC: Handy tool for wetsanding

This week I was commissioned to paint my father in law's mini van. I used to do auto body repair and painting for a living, but gave it up haven't painted a car in years. After wetsanding yesterday by hand, I realized how old, fat and out of shape I a am. lol... I went home and found my old Hutchins wet sander I have owned since 1990. I had to do some repairs to get it back working again thanks to a leaky roof in the shed, but it sure was worth the effort.

Anyway, a friend of mine that has done body work for a few years came by as I was using it today and informed me that he had never seen one before. That got me to thinking that although it's something I take for granted many of the people here may not have seen one either.

It runs on air and has an dual oribital action like a D/A sander, but has a rectangular board about 8 1/2" long. This padded board has 10 holes for water to flow through. There is a small hose that connects to your water hose. You clamp the sandpaper into place and use a "punch plate" to punch the holes in the sandpaper. It's basically a metal plate with 10 spikes that lines up with the pad and punches the holes for you all at once. Turn on the water, hook up the air, and you're ready to go.

This thing is really great for sanding on a boat. Your actual work time is cut in half at least. I did the entire mini van today with 600 grit in about 3 hours. I like to do my bodywork, lay down 2-3 coats of K-36 urethane filler primer, and then use the wetsander to block it out smooth. With 320 grit it cuts it down really fast, but leaves scratch marks of what you would normally have with 600 if done by hand.

Anyway, I wanted to post some pics for those that might be interested. I'm not sure what they cost these days. I paid about $300 for it 20 years ago, but they may even be cheaper now since more companies are probably producing them. If you're going to be doing a couple of boats, it's well worth the investment. I belive they even make a 12" board for it too. Anyway, here's some pics!

Doug

Yep those sanders are great. I have the same one. Bought it about 5 years ago, and it cost about 300.00. LOL Hutchins makes the best air sanders IMO

That's pretty cool, didn't know they existed. It's been forever since I did any wet sanding, but I still remember the hassle. If you tried to use a power (air d/a) sander, you had to sponge the water on from a bucket and bend over constantly to keep the surface wet. If you used the garden hose to supply water, it was difficult to keep the sander flat with the one hand. The guy teaching (or trying to teach I should say) insisted that block sanding by hand was the ONLY way to do it right. This tool would provide the best of both worlds.

Here's the link. www.hutchinsmfg.com/content/waterb.html

May have to look in to one of these

The tool looks great. I know they have several waterbug sanders but have never tried one of them. We use an air orbital jitterbug sander that they sell on ebay and tape a small hose to it along the airhose using an adapter identical to the one you have pictured. The makeshift setup works great for us - water runs all over the pad. My question is - do the small holes make that much difference to make the purchase of a waterbug worthwhile? Thanks!