Technical Contour sct from Eastwood

I was told about this tool Eastwood is selling the contour sct I have looked at the YouTube videos and it looks good as most things do when you are promoting them. My question is has anyone used one and is it worth the bucks they are asking for it or is there a better way to strip rust and paint. I have a sandblaster next door to me so let's not include that one please. Thanks, Jim

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I watched all those videos also, and had to have one. But, to be honest, I wasn't too impressed by it. You will end up spending a heck of a lot more time on stripping items than those videos show. I would much rather have had the ability to media blast the fenders on my 35 Ford pickup.

 

What does SCT stand for?

 

What media ?
That stuff, any stuff, sand beads steel shot corn ice coming thru is media.

That contour tool is great for buffing up metal work for photo opportunities. The finish is too slick to do anything else with

 

I have one but haven't used it yet. Don't know if I need it now.

 

"Surface Conditioning Tool"

 

Somebody else makes a similar tool (Porter Cable maybe?), if you search there's a Utube video comparing them somewhere. The replacement sanding drums are rather expensive for the Eastwood version IIRC...

 

^^^Yea, they are. About $50-$60 a drum.

 

Holy moly.

 

I'm a confessed tool-a-holic and I thought about buying one a while back..........till I saw what the extra drums cost.

 

I bought one but have not been able to use it because the drum I need is out of stock the cost is 49.99

 

Haven’t used the electric one but we were using a German made one similar to this 20 years ago. If you have ever been involved with European car body work, the wire wheels are a great tool for removing seam sealer/under coating.
The eraser is great on decals, double side tape and pin stripe tape.
The wheels that look like scuff pads are great for cleaning bare metal. Removes light rust that can get into grinder/sand scratches well.
I would not use it as the final step before priming. But it can be a versatile tool.
After watching the video I am also following to see if the one you mention of works as shown.

 

Got a link to the video in question?

 

https://www.eastwood.com/eastwood-contour-sct.html
Maybe that will work. My phone had some loading issues.

 

I have the porter cable tool bought from lowes. I like the scotch brite drum, and was just at lowes to get a new drum. So I walk thru the tool department and cannot find the tool or drums. Come to find out porter cable restorer has been rebranded as a craftsman, drums also.

 

The $60 drum isn’t a consumable.
it holds $7.00 sandpaper

 

Flop is a big fan of the contour sander.

 

I couldn’t load those videos either.
I use mine, but not for stripping paint. It does ok on busted up paint, not to thick paint, 1/2 paint 1/2 surface rust. There’s better faster less heat and more economical ways to do it though. No way I’d use it to take off sound paint.
It’s really really great for buffing metal, or uniform patterns but you’ve got to do another step taking it down to prime it. Want a bare metal car??? Oh hell yes you need at least one or these.
It’s pretty good to add artistic flair to stainless steel.

 

I’ve got two friends that have them and use them all the time, they seem happy with it

 

Here is another advertisement

 

I've used mine to strip a frame and to strip parts of my Sedan Delivery body. I've had it for a couple of years and have yet to buy any additional stripping drums other than the one I purchased when I bought the tool.

It works well for what I have been using it for. I was concerned with heat build up and I did some "touch" comparisons between the SCT and an electric HF DA sander and couldn't tell much difference. It is faster than using the DA sander with 40 grit, and I dont see metal coming off like I do with the DA sander.

Overall, it was worth what I paid for it, for what I use it for. I'm just a garage builder and like tools, so there is that...

 

i was as close to buying one without actually pulling the trigger, had it in the "cart" a handful of drums selected, etc, but talked myself out of it after hearing as many people liking it as disliking it. I've been using surface conditioning pads on a hook & loop pad on regular 4 1/2 grinders for the last few yrs and they have been working well. I buy them from Lehigh Valley Abrasives, it says the ones I've been buying are $1.79 a piece and you can do a decent amount with one, but you also wont save yourself any time trying to use it after its worn out. these are the pads, they have them in different degrees of coarse-ness https://www.lehighvalleyabrasives.c...ning-disc-lehigh-valley-hl45nw-crs-hl45nw-crs
and this is the backing pad I bought, though I think I damaged it and bought another from McMaster Carr https://www.lehighvalleyabrasives.c...g-pad-for-hook-loop-discs-lva-hlbp45p-hlbp45p
I have had a few instances of getting a little carried away and launching a disc off of the pad, (its just hook & loop) but its a fibrous pad so its not all that firm, and bounced off my leg or shot across the shop

 

My personal impression of the tool is that it's gimmick. I'm sure it works, but it's very expensive for what it is and IMHO there are other processes and materials that do a better job for a fraction of the cost. That's my biggest beef with the Eastwood SCT, the cost of the consumables. A stripping drum is $50. That's a fortune.

In terms of just stripping material (paint, primer, filler), you're talking about the silicon carbide stripping material, a/k/a the clean-n-strip discs. Those are commonly purchased for $5 each or less and require no specialized tooling, just a basic angle grinder. These will leave the same finish as the Eastwood SCT except in a circular pattern instead of straight up and down. Neither tool is going to remove any real amount of metal and neither should warp the panel with appropriate usage. Really it shouldn't matter what direction the scratches are going in unless you're one of those guys that likes to stroke it to how the car looks in bare metal, as long as the surface is cleaned and has some texture, you're spraying high-build over it and starting body work, which is filling all of the pretty scratches.

That speaks nothing of my general skepticism of Eastwood tools' quality, especially considering their high price.

 

The tool itself is heavy, pretty well built and has plenty of power. I wasn't impressed with the 80 grit interleaf drum, though. 80 grit on a DA strips much faster.

It took the good part of an afternoon to strip a quarter panel.

 

I guess I am out of touch. I still use a DA to strip one and prep it for paint. Works fine for me.

 

It looks like it would be handy for refinishing boat hulls.

 

We used a similar tool for cleaning up welds on the stainless rear impact guards and rear frames on Great Dane refrigerated semi trailers and they work very well for leaving the parts look just like the brushed stainless does before welding!

 

I have one, and it works way faster than the results many of you have gotten.

I stripped the tail of my Falcon, from the door posts back, less the very tight areas around the tail lights, in under 30-minutes. The hood took about 5-minutes.

All of this was with an 80-grit Interleaf Stripping Flap Wheel, that cost $23, delivered.

Oh, and I have now stripped two full cars with that same wheel.

 

Eastwood also has a similar Pneumatic Rotary Removal Tool. Has anyone had experience with it? I'm asking because I have a Snap On Crud Thug which is very similar to this. Eastwood's uses an abrasive stripping wheel with hub and I would like to know if I could use the Eastwood stripping wheel with my Snap On tool which just has wire wheels. These things look interchangable in the pictures but I can't get an answer from Eastwood. Snap on doesn't have this stripping wheel. It looks like the tool that Anthony Myrick showed in post #12.

 

I'm with porknbeaner. DA and 36 grit will take it down to bare metal, quickly. Follow it up with 80, 150, prime.
What are you stripping?