Old Electronic Toothbrush Becomes New Miniature Electric Sander

Sanding is always the worst part of any project. Maybe you've just spent days building a nice coffee table and now you have to devote another couple of hours to sanding it. Or maybe your 3D prints are a little rough and you want a polished final product. Thankfully, we have power tools to help us through the grunt work. Most of those are, however, too powerful for delicate jobs. That's why you might want to check out this miniature electric sander made from an old electric toothbrush.

You could, of course, use a rotary tool like a Dremel for sanding small items. But those work by spinning at very high speeds and that might be too much for the application. Or you could purchase an electric sander designed for this kind of work. By why waste the money if you've already got an old electric toothbrush laying around? That already performs the motion you require, you just need to make it more abrasive.

This project is as simple as they come. The demonstration uses an Oral-B toothbrush, but the same basic concept would apply to just about any electric toothbrush. Start by cutting the bristles off of the head of the toothbrush. Then glue a small 3D-printed disc onto the head. Finally, velcro a sanding disc onto the 3D-printed part.

That's it! You get a small electric sander perfect for little jobs and the only money you spent was on the sanding discs, plus a few cents worth of glue and filament.