Accessory for using steel wool or other abrading materials

This disclosure teaches an accessory that can be used to hold steel wool for powered use thereof driven by a power tool. The disclosed accessory utilizes a mat formed of the hook section of the hook and loop fastener, such as is marketed under the Velcro or Scotchmate tradenames. It has been found that steel wool can be releaseably held fast against and to the hooked mat. The accessory is sized and shaped so as to allow it to be secured onto the output element of a conventional power tool, such as onto the platen of a vibrating sander. This thereby allows the power tool to be used for powered steel wooling, thereby increasing the usefulness of the tool while reducing the drudgery of steel wooling. Other looped or woven forms of abrading material, such as polishing rags, can be releaseably adhered to the hooked mat for powered buffing with the powered sander.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
Many forms of abrasive materials are available for stripping out or buffing 
surfaces to a smooth finish and/or high gloss. These materials include 
sandpapers of various weights and grades, wire brushes, emery cloths or 
the like, and steel wool. To use any of these abrasive materials, the 
abrasive material is moved relative to the article or to the surface to be 
finished. For many do it yourself consumer type buffing projects, there is 
nothing better than old elbow grease in manually creating or causing this 
relative buffing movement. 
However, many power tool devices are available for holding certain of these 
abrasives for allowing powered applications of them. Thus, an electric 
drill can be used with its rotating output to power rotate for example a 
rotary wire brush or a sanding pad or buffer. These items, the rotary wire 
brush, sanding pad or buffer are available as accessory items for just 
such purposes. Also, a belt sander is a common power tool, using a special 
endless sanding belt that is trained over a pair of spaced rollers and is 
rotated by one of the rollers to move unidirectionally against the article 
or surface to be finished. A further variation of a sander is the 
vibrating sander, where a platen is power oscilated back and forth, in a 
straight line or a tight orbital path, and a piece of sandpaper is held to 
the platen to be moved then relative to the article or surface to be 
finished. 
It is noted, however, that there are few power tool devices suitable for 
powered manipulation of steel wool. The characteristics of smoothness or 
abrasiveness in steel wool, for example as compared to a sandpaper, is 
most significant and consequently the substitution then of sandpaper for 
steel wool can not be readily made. Steel wool can be used effectively on 
wood, metal, glass or ceramic, and even plastic or composition materials. 
Steel wool itself is a composite mass of a plurality of finely and randomly 
woven or stranded wires, typically of steel, where each wire strand is of 
such fine cross section as to offer only minor resistance against bending 
and where a great multitude of such strands are grouped together in a 
rather loose or pillowy mass or pad. This pillowy nature makes it somewhat 
difficult to chuck or hold the steel wool relative to most power tool 
devices. Nonetheless the random crossing of the pillowy strands create a 
very beneficial abrading action against the surface where it is desired to 
remove impurities from or roughness from the surface. 
Thus steel wool can be used in stripping a surface of paint, varnish or the 
like, and the stripping action requires random back and forth movement of 
the steel wool relative to the surface. Further, a metallic surface of 
brass, copper, chrome or the like frequently can be buffed up with steel 
wool to remove rust, tarnish or the like from the surface. However, steel 
wooling in the main has been handled manually and is very tiring; which is 
not totally satisfactory in this advanced age of the machine and other 
work saving devices. 
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
This invention relates to an accessory for a conventional power tool for 
allowing the tool to be used for powered steel wooling. The invention 
teaches means for fixedly but removably securing a steel wool pad or mass 
to the output of the power tool to allow then the steel wool to be used 
under power. 
The invention is most practically used with a powered sander having its 
output in the form of a moving or vibrating platen. The invention more 
specifically provides a steel wool holding component that is adapted to be 
secured in place against the platen, the component being in the form of a 
mat of the hook half of a Velcro fastener. The pad of steel wool itself is 
then adapted to be pressed against the Velcro mat so as to be adhered 
thereto in a fixed nonmovable fashion, whereby operation of the sander 
thereby provides for powered steel wooling as desired.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION 
In FIG. 1, a vibrating sander 10 is illustrated, having a case 11 or frame 
which includes handles 12 and 13 that can be manually grasped by an 
operator to allow manipulation of the sander. A platen 14 is supported 
relative to the frame 11 by four spaced resilient posts (only two at 16 
being shown). The platen 14 can thus be moved parallel to itself back and 
forth and laterally of the frame 11 as the posts 16 are flexed, and a 
motor (not shown) housed within the frame 11 acts through an eccentric 
drive (not shown) to rapidly vibrate the platen 14 relative to the frame 
11. 
Various types of sanders 10 are available and any type can be used with 
this invention. Thus, one type provides only a straight line path of 
platen oscillation, "in-line" or front to rear of the sander; while 
another type provides only a circular or orbital path of platen 
oscillation; while yet another can be adjusted to have either of these 
platen movements and sometimes even in varying combinations. 
Each conventional vibrating sander 10 further includes means 20 to hold a 
sheet of sandpaper to the platen. In the sander illustrated, these holding 
means 20 are located on the backside of the platen 14 at its forward and 
rearward ends. Each holding means 20 includes a clip 24 (see FIG. 4) 
pivoted about a pin 26 and biased by a coil spring 28 so that the clip is 
moved against the backside of the platen 14. There further can be formed 
from the clip 24 an offset tab 30 to allow a screwdriver or like tool (not 
shown) to be positioned in the opening 32 formed adjacent the tab in order 
to easily open or close the clip against the bias of the spring 28 for 
allowing easy securement or release of the work abrading element relative 
to the vibrating platen. Typically further there is a pad 34 of fiber, 
foam or other resilient material that is bonded or otherwise secured to 
the outer face of the platen 14 to serve as a backing for the sandpaper or 
other abrading element. 
In ordinary use of the sander 10, a sheet of sandpaper (not shown) sized 
larger than the platen 14 is butted against the pad 34 and has its ends 
folded around the opposite ends of the platen to be positioned under and 
held by the clips 24. 
Referring now more specifically to FIGS. 2 and 3, the invention will now be 
disclosed. An improved steel wool holding element 36 is illustrated, and 
includes a backup sheet 38 of such size that it can traverse the platen 
and pad and yet having sufficient end sections 40 that can be fitted 
around the end edges of the platen and held beneath the clips 24. Secured 
to the intermediate section only of the backup sheet 38 is a mat 42 of a 
rigid or stiff hooked material. By way of example, the mat 42 can be 
similar to the hook half of a Velcro fastener, which is a product of 
Velcro U.S.A. Inc., a subsidiary of Textron Corporation of New York, N.Y. 
The standard Velcro fastener consists of two mating pieces, one having a 
looped face and the other having a hooked face, and these two faces when 
pressed together adhere to one another, as is well known. The hook faced 
pieces (see FIG. 3) has many individual elements 44 each of a firm or 
stiff nature that is bent upon itself and is secured at its ends to a 
backsheet 46. These elements thereby project away from the backsheet and 
each in a sense defines an eyelet 48. In a typical Velcro mat, there might 
be well in excess of several hundred individual eyelets and the eyelets 
basically are aligned in a systematic pattern such as along spaced 
parallel rows 50. 
The illustrated "hook" section of Velcro has one leg 52 of each eyelet cut 
to define a "J-type" hook, and this configuration might be considered 
standard as it is most common. The configuration where each eyelet is left 
closed is known as an "uncut" Velcro hook; while the configuration where 
both legs of the eyelet are cut is known as a "stubble" hook. The "J-type" 
hook as illustrated is preferred with this invention, although the other 
configurations work in certain instances. 
Again now referring to FIG. 4, it is readily apparent that the improved 
abrading holding element 36 is located relative to the platen of the 
vibrating sander 10 so that the hook configurations of the Velcro mat 44 
project away from the platen over the whole breadth or at least over a 
large part of the platen. To use the sander for steel wooling, a pad P of 
steel wool is positioned against the mat 42 and becomes adhered or fixed 
thereto. The adhesion is temporary in that the steel wool can be pulled 
away from the Velcro mat; but however when it is in place, the steel wool 
is fixedly held relative to the platen and can be used with the sander for 
powered steel wooling. 
It is well known that steel wool comes in varying forms, one form being a 
small pillow type pad which in turn is packaged in a larger box or 
container having many other similar pads. Alternatively, the steel wool 
can come in a large mass from which smaller pieces are individually torn 
away with care by the user to develop a pad of the size required for a 
particular application. The particular manner of achieving the steel wool 
pad is immaterial, but it is only required that sufficient steel wool be 
adhered to the steel wool holding mat 42 to preclude contact of the mat 
itself directly against the surface to be abraded. 
It will be understood that the steel wool becomes adhered within the 
plurality of hooks formed on the mat 42, and in the most part can be 
removed merely by pulling the steel wool pad away from the mat. However, 
even in the event that all of the steel wool is not released from the 
hooked mat 42 but in fact some of the steel wool remains adhered to the 
mat, fresh steel wool can be adhered to the platen 14 because this steel 
wool will adhere to the mat and/or to the old steel wool already held in 
place on the mat. 
The backup sheet 38 and the mat 42, when secured together, act as a unitary 
piece. Nonetheless, the sheet 38 should be of sufficient durability and 
strength to allow the steel wool to be held rigidly relative to the platen 
at least at the surface of the platen and to allow solid securement of its 
ends 40 by the clips 24. A thin sheet of plastic material, backed by 
fibers or the like, such as sold by Uniroyal Inc. under the trade name 
Naugahyde, has proven to be very suitable. A woven mat of canvas, nylon or 
other durable material would also be suitable. Moreover, the backing sheet 
38 and the Velcro mat 42 can be bonded together by means of adhesives 
marketed by Velcro U.S.A. Inc., or by others; can be sewed by suitable 
durable threads, typically of nylon; or by a combination of bonding and 
sewing. 
While mention has been made to Velcro U.S.A. Inc. as a supplier of the 
desired holding mat 36 of a hook and loop fastener, others including the 
3M Company with its product Scotchmate provide equivalent and suitable 
hook section holding mats. Also, while primary attention has been directed 
to the holding element 36 as a means for holding steel wool, it also has 
proven very effective for holding certain other types of abrading 
material. Thus, woven buffing or polishing cloths, T-shirts, or even 
pieces of a blanket can be held by the holding element 36 for powered 
polishing with the vibrating sander.