June 18, 2023

Toothbrush Sander

This was my attempt to make a small precision sander from an electric toothbrush.

People have been making small sanders from electric toothbrushes for a long time. Most of the time they just cut the bristles off and glue on some sand paper to the head.  I wanted to try something different…

I started by completely removing the brush head…

Next I trimmed off the end of the neck with a saw and also clipped off the ball of the rod.

Then I turned up a 8-32″ threaded adapter on my mini lathe to fit some heat set inserts.

This threaded adapter is glued onto the tooth brush rod with some Loctite Retaining Compound.

I designed up some quick sanding heads in different shapes, 3D printed them out of PLA, and installed the heatset inserts into them.

Using some double sided tape I attached some sand paper to these heads.

The heads then just screw onto the threaded adapter.

It works ok but is not super aggressive which is good I guess because I was just looking to do some precision sanding type stuff.

I did try some right angle heads too to see if they sanded better or worse but the rod spins freely so these are hard to use and keep on the work piece.

Overall it was a fun project and it didn’t cost me anything and will get some use so I consider it a success.

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