A few weeks ago, I wrote about how I spent an extraordinary amount of time sanding a dilapidated old dresser that I got at the dump’s "free pile." All that sanding was very satisfying as far as letting out a few aggressions. Unfortunately, although the process was good for my mental health, it wasn’t so good for my sander.
Yes, while attempting to refinish the Ugly Dresser, I managed to kill my 15-year-old Sears sander. This poor old thing has dealt with ALL of my myriad refinishing projects over the years and it finally up and died. Basically, it stopped moving, so it became a very heavy hand sander.
Anyway, I was clearly done for the day, but later on James evaluated the sander and thought it might be fixable. So he took it apart. At some point later on, he showed me the part that had broken. I was sad.
A few days later, I was wandering around the local hardware store and headed to the tool aisle. It turns out that my old half-sheet sander is no longer easy to find. Most new sanders use expensive proprietary sandpaper. Or they are tiny. I was sad again, since I don’t want a tiny sander and I hate spending a fortune for disposable things like sandpaper. (Not to mention that the cheapest sander was really quite expensive.)
Meanwhile back at the ranch, my enterprising husband was surfing the ‘net. He discovered how to buy parts for my ancient sander. He whipped out his credit card, and spent $5 or so for the new parts.
It remains to be seen if he can put it all back together again. (He is miffed that I have even the slightest doubt.) But if he gets it working again, it will be a great technological triumph. I mean if you can find parts for a 15-year-old sander, maybe you really CAN find anything on the Internet 😉