Taking the right angle

I sometimes think I live under a rock when finding a new tool, only to learn it’s not new at all.  I’ve written about this several times here, most recently last spring. 

This one’s an accessory, though, not an actual tool, and as frequently happens I learned about it in a targeted ad online. The ad was for Festool sanders, but an image showed a sander being used for edge sanding, mounted in some kind of handled contraption. I had no idea what it was, but after Googling found out it’s the Festool “Positioning Aid,” a clamp-on edge guide that holds some of the company’s random orbit sanders at an exact 45 to 90 degrees for edge sanding. 

But it was anything but new — Festool come out with it in 2020. (Maybe I can blame Covid for being oblivious about this one?) Still, I thought it pretty clever, and I wondered if I could find one for my Dewalt, Makita or Milwaukee sander. After a lot of searching, I found that besides Festool, only Mirka offers one for their Deros line of sanders. Both guides have positive stops at 45 and 90 degrees but allow the sanding angle to be set anywhere in that range when tightening down the ring. 

Once I knew what I was looking for, however, my Googling turned up dozens of similar edge sanding guides through third-party sources, especially those specializing in 3-D printed tool accessories. The craft site Etsy is a notable source for things like these, as in the three examples from McFarland Customs in the lower row of the above photo for DeWalt, 3M and Ridgid sanders. 

Functionally, they’re all about the same as the Festool and Mirka guides, with a holding ring that mounts around the sander’s upper body and can be tightened for a firm 90-degree grip. They typically sell for around 50 bucks, but if you have a 3-D printer, you can pick up the print files for a lot less. 

The design is incredibly simple and sits squarely in the why-didn’t-anyone-think-of-this before category of tool accessories. Festool and Mirka did, obviously, but it’s curious that none of the other major tool manufacturers have.