May 23, 2007

Wagner PaintEater

If you're thinking about painting the house this summer, you're probably already dreading the scraping process; endless hours on a ladder covered with paint chips, scraping till it feels like you're arm's going to fall off. If this is your reoccurring nightmare, Wagner has a tool that might make things a lot easier for you. The PaintEater, aside from having a superhero name worthy of DC Comics, is a surface preparation tool that looks like it could help anyone speed up the first agonizing step of the painting routine.

The PaintEater exists somewhere between a grinder and an orbital sander. The pad looks like a circular Brillo and according to the Wagner website, isn't prone to getting clogged up with paint chips and dust. The tool has a Velcro hand strap for ladder work and a tool free arbor lock for quick and easy pad changing. There is also a secondary, retractable handle for those times when one hand just isn't cutting it.

Because of the nature of the sanding/scrubbing pad, the PaintEater is aggressive on chipped and loose paint, but not the substrate, whether it be brick, wood, or concrete.

The PaintEater has gotten some high marks from the Handyman Club of America, earning both the contractor tested seal and the handyman tested seal.

The tool retails for about $75 and comes with two discs. If it really works, this is a small price to pay for the work that it will do.

At Amazon.com

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