I’ve had some projects where flap sander wheels were the cats meeyow. I was refinishing an old rod iron railing years ago that had those twisted balusters every 4” that were covered in rust , and those flap wheels worked excellent for cleaning the old paint and rust off. I could give you other examples where they are worth their weight in gold sometimes, but most of them were working with metal.
As woodworkers we have become spoiled with all the new toys that have been developed over the years. I remember starting out as a young boy with my father and grandfather and being told I needed to master the hand tools first, before being introduced to the power tools. In the late 1960’s and early 70’s all the finish woodworking in new homes were hand nailed and fit with block planes and sanding blocks. Hanging doors, and installing window surrounds, and casing, was all cut with a hand miter saw and secured with nails driven by hand and a nail set was used on each nail…… compressors and nail guns were just becoming popular in the mid 70’s and it actually hurt the old school finish carpenters a lot. The prices dropped a lot with the increased production of the nail guns alone. Not to mention the power miter saws and hand held routers and sanders they came out with during that time.
So I really appreciate all these wonderful modern toys, after learning to do it all by hand many years ago. Kirk