Lining up holes in sanding dics with the ROS sander holes

[Cherryville Chuck]

One of the tasks I've often found mildly annoying is trying to line the holes in sanding discs up with the holes in my ROS sanders. I found an easy way to line them up. I just take some 3/8" dowels and stick 3 of them in a roughly triangular pattern in the ROS's dust collection holes and then slide the paper down them. I have a couple of Bosch sanders whose holes are a little bigger than 3/8" and several DW sanders that are 3/8" and so are the holes in the discs. In the background is a trial jig where I glued some dowels in a piece of plywood but I cut the dowels too short for it to work well.

[DaninVan]

Great shop hack; I like it!

[Jon]

Indeed a great solution. I never made the jig, just insert the dowels into the sander and slide the paper in place. Particularly useful with the hook and loop paper.

[Nickp]

Great idea...will be keeping dowels in my sanding bag...

[Herb Stoops]

those darn dowels get in the way when I am sanding.....Good tip otherwise.
Just saying.
Herb

[DaninVan]

Yeh, but the sanding disc will last forever.

[Herb Stoops]

I was thinking about gluing some little dots of sandpaper on each dowel ,3 different grits, that way you might be able to cut down on sanding time by using course, medium and fine all at one time.
Herb

[Cherryville Chuck]

Indeed a great solution. I never made the jig, just insert the dowels into the sander and slide the paper in place. Particularly useful with the hook and loop paper.

I agree Jon. Sticking the dowels in the holes works well enough that I've never tried improving on the jig.

[Nickp]

I was thinking about gluing some little dots of sandpaper on each dowel ,3 different grits, that way you might be able to cut down on sanding time by using course, medium and fine all at one time.
Herb

Always the innovator...!

[old55]

Handy tip, thanks.