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Appreciation post: Hand filing beats power sanding on aluminum every time

I spent 3 hours with a DA sander on a aluminum hood repair last week and still had waves everywhere. Switched to a mill file and got it flat in 45 minutes. Anyone else find power tools just push the metal around instead of actually removing material?
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2 Comments
grant.jason
Is a hood repair really that serious where three hours of wavy metal is acceptable though? Sounds more like a technique issue with the DA than the tool itself. Maybe a few more passes with a coarse grit would have saved you the file work.
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umabailey
umabailey3d ago
Right! Files take the guesswork out and actually cut true.
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