It’s A Sander! No, It’s A Toothbrush! Relax, Relax, It’s Both

Sep 12, 2023

We always enjoy a project that transforms some common object into something useful for us. [Modelkitsdeluxe] fits the bill by modifying a power toothbrush into a miniature sander. If you want to practice your Spanish, you can watch the video below. Or you can try the automatically translated captions.

As you can guess from the user name, he is mainly interested in working with small models, but it struck us that this might also be useful for general 3D printing. Honestly, once you have the idea, there isn’t much to it. You mutilate a brush head that fits the toothbrush to accept a small sanding disk.

There are probably a dozen ways to attach your sandpaper or emery cloth to the head. [Modelkitdeluxe] used double-sided tape and Velcro. While we applaud the upcycling, we’ll probably stick with a hobby tool. Our toothbrush makes an annoying buzz every 30 seconds or so to remind you to move to another part of your mouth. That doesn’t seem like a great feature when doing precision sanding. On the other hand, you could probably yank the controller out of the toothbrush and use it for the motor, drive, and batteries to avoid that.

If you want to tackle that, here’s something to get you started. If sanding doesn’t turn your crank, maybe you can try turning your deadbolt.