How to get a "seized/stuck" pad off a sander

[Roch_Greg]

The company who's Network I manage uses Dynabrade Orbital Sanders (http://www.dynabrade.com/cgi-bin/Industrial/57583?tKZP5rLs;;11) for prepping the sheet metal during the PCB manufacturering process.

They use them for wetsanding and leave the sander w/pad attached at the wet station when done. So after about a month or so of this they need to replace the pad cause the hookit backing ain't sticking anymore. But since they don't take care to remove the pad daily it won't come off. So that sander get's chucked and out comes a new one and the cycle continues.

Me and a few other hobbist's at work have been taking them home and cleaning them up so we can use em, heck why not when they are only a few months old.

But getting the backing pad off with the wrench is not so easy since it's seized up on the spindle.

Anyone have aany ideas on how best to go about it? The last one I brought home I had to hack saw off the pad so I could get at the metal center plate with a pair of visew grips, then lock the body in a vise and try to spin the rest of the pad out.

[Phil V]

Dynabrade doesn't give you a whole lot of room to work with the pad. the factory spindle wrench is only an eighth of an inch if even that thick. What happens when you use the factory supplied spindle wrench ? (bend the wrench ?, strip the outer part of the spindle nut ? )

What about cutting most of the pad off to where you could use channel locks or a vice grip on the remainder of the pad and use the spindle wrench on the spindle ?

[Roch_Greg]

Yep Phil your right there isn't that much room to work with, add the skirt and it's less till you pop it off.

Using the wrench though doesn't break or bend anything, but doesn't move the pad either. I've been trying some PB Blast and letting it soak but I think I can't produce enough torque to get the thing broken free.


The other one I did like you said but cutting urethane is a chore by hand saw, I think I need a cut off tool.

[Blaze9t8]

What if you were to drill 2-1/4" holes or bigger in the pad leaving enough room to still get the wrench on the balancer shaft and put the straight ends of the drills in the holes and then put the bits into a vise holding the pad from turning with the drill bits and loosen with the wrench. Looking at the assembly notes the pad is loctited to the balancer shaft. Loctite is removable with slight heat not penetrants.

[Roch_Greg]

Hmm, maybe your on to something there, I have those sheets in the box maybe I need to break them out.

I asked another guy at work how he gets the pads off. He said he does something similar to what you suggest.

I'm not concerned with saving the old pad, so I guess I'll either try your suggestion or do as I've been doing (cut the pad down to the metal center) then use a vise and channel locks.

Thanks guys for all the suggestions.

Greg