Grinder dust shrouds

Discussion in 'Fiberglass and Composite Boat Building' started by Steve W, Feb 10, 2018.

  1. Steve W
    Joined: Jul 2004
    Posts: 1,844
    Likes: 73, Points: 48, Legacy Rep: 608
    Location: Duluth, Minnesota

    Steve W Senior Member

    I'm not sure if this is the appropriate place for this topic but it seemed best to me.
    I am shopping around to find dust shroud options for the various grinders I use during the course of my work and am getting a bit frustrated. Years ago when nothing had dust shrouds we made a fiberglass one for the Makita sander/polisher which just about every boatbuilding and repair shop uses. I now want to convert both the 4 1/2" angle grinders and more of the Makita's at work and here's the problem I'm running into and I'm hoping someone here may have a solution that I have not found. In this industry we typically use the 4 1/2" angle grinder with coarse Zek discs for heavy fiberglass stock removal as well as the larger Makita model 9277c sander polisher, we probably have half a dozen of each or more. Here's the problem. All the shrouds I am finding for the smaller grinder are larger than they need to be as they are sized for a 5" disc whereas the most commonly available discs are 4/1/2". This is not that much of a problem really because when we run out of our current inventory of the 4 1/2" we can get 5", more of a frustration. It has taken a lot of searching but I think I have come up with a special adapter for using the zek offset with the shrouds to get the level correct, which I just ordered so we shall see.
    The bigger issue is the Makita as all of the shrouds I've found are for a 7" pad which is what most machines come with, however i think most boat shops ( at least any i've worked at) throw that away and install the 8"yellow 3m soft pad which does not fit most of the shrouds available. So, unless one of you guys can suggest a decent 8" shroud to fit this tool I will probably have to mould my own fiberglass ones again, not that hard to do but if I could just buy some I would.

    Steve.
     
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