Review: 5/5 Dronco - Paint / Rust / Cleaning / Fleece Disc 115mm 4.5"

Foobar

Club Member
Jul 30, 2017
2,843
2,368
Great Yarmouth, NORFOLK
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I was looking for a way to clean up an old oscilloscope trolley before painting, for use with my welder, and spotted these on YouTube :-


The above should be self explanatory, but essentially this is a polymer fibre disc coated in a resin containing abrasives. This one is a 'Coarse Grade'. It should clean without cutting away excess metal and produce few sparks unlike the conventional grinding disk below.

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I'm using a 'cheap as chips' Screwfix sourced grinder that probably should have a smaller 4" 100mm disc, so I had to remove the guard ( consider my wrists already slapped ).

The downside of this disc, was that it was harder ( but not impossible ) to get into the corners of the frame I was trying to clean and that after a few minutes, the disk started to shed material, so eye protection here is vital. The video does say that you only get 20 minutes usage out of a disc and I probably did better than that. When I thought it was used up, I kept getting more and more cleaning out of it. The hub of my grinder is probably not ideal and some sort of bush / spacer would have helped to keep the shaft from touching the workpiece, although that really was not a problem.

However, judge for yourself, but I think it did a great job and only took a half hour or so. Wet and dry or wire wool would have taken forever, a standard grinding disk or even a sanding pad / disc would have cut the metal too much and needed a pass with a fine grade to get a nice finish. I refuse to put a wire brush on a high speed grinder, that is lethal. I once did this and when the wires broke off they went right thru my thick jeans and into my legs. I hate to think what would happen to an eye ( shudders ). It now looks like a quick wipe down and I will be able to prime / Hammerite the frame.

In conclusion this is a consumable and the time saved and quality of finish make this very worthwhile. I'm giving it 5 out of 5.

Cost is £8.49 including P&P and arrived very quickly. Avoid the clown who sells them for £6.90, they don't turn up after two weeks of your time has been wasted and then you just get a refund and no opportunity to give stinking feedback...

Available on eBay, various sources ( see thread title for search keywords ), but I'm trying the branded ones for a start. Might try some cheapie ones later as a comparison.
  • Quality: 5
  • Ease of use: 4
  • Value for money: 5
  • Overall: 5
I'm thinking of trying these on bodywork later, as may be kinder to older, thinner, paintwork...

Here's my trolley before and after ( what do you mean, did I fall off it ? )

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I'm going to be trying these generic ones next, just ordered them from eBay. The last Dronco one I used cost £6.95 from a different supplier to the first one ( £8.95 ) and turned up the next day. Bear in mind they all wear out after about 30 minutes. The other thing to note, is that the polymer carrier the disc is made with and that carries the abrasive, leaves a slight 'smear' on the metal. I reckon some toluene ( my favourite 'go to' strong solvent ) and wire wool should deal with this before painting. I'll keep you posted :-

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These just arrived, looking somewhat like the illustration on eBay !

They were a lot cheaper than the Dronco ones, at £13.29 for 5 inc P&P :-

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Time will tell !