Flex WSE 7 Vario Set Wall Sander Easy Prep and Smooth!


Independent Review by Peter Brett


Established in 1922, the German company, Flex has had an increasingly higher brand profile in the UK over the last few years. This is not just some marketing trick, but has a lot to do with the incredible variety of Flex products. Mostly these products are


out the various sanding options. Fortunately it is Spring and several people I know are redecorating. Basically the main parts of the kit are the motor


housing, the round sander assembly and the triangular sander assembly.


the body. The end of the extractor hose simply clicks into place via two small lugs onto the collecting hood below the gearbox housing. Both the sander heads are similarly designed for


quick change as they use a hook and loop system to attach the sanding sheets. The dust collection holes in the sanding sheets are quite large and it is easy to line them up with the sanding pad holes for efficient dust collection. Collecting dust from any sander is pretty difficult,


but with a large area to collect from and with a machine that could be used at a large number of difficult angles, dust collection is pretty complicated. The problem is pretty well solved by Flex by having a large plastic shroud over the round disc. Around the edge of the shroud is a tightly packed row of plastic bristles. These allow the free flow of air to the disc, but also prevent particles of dust from escaping. I also found the bristles a very good way of helping me avoid dig-ins as I was sanding as they helped equalize the distance between the disc and the area I was sanding. The triangular sander does not have the bristle


for professional users in the grinding, cutting, polishing and sanding trades where Flex has a highly developed expertise. All the Flex products I have tested over the last


few years have had some major things in common. They are well-designed and robust, trade rated tools that are meant to work all day for their living. They are also, wherever possible, designed to change function or be adjusted without using tools. This latter feature means that they save users a lot of time and hassle. Finally, since they are often involved in creating lots of harmful dust, they have very well organized dust collection systems that minimize harm to the operators. So, an awful lot to like in the Flex range of tools. The tool I was sent this time to review is the WSE


7 Vario Set of wall sanders. The whole kit is housed in a big black plastic box that is cleverly designed to hold all the key bits separately, including even the variety of round and triangular sanding sheets needed. The WSE set can be used for everything from


sanding joints in plasterboard to smoothing plastered walls and ceilings and removing remnants of wallpaper and paint. To be honest, I have used my hard-pressed 150mm diameter random orbit sander for this type of job many times, but it is not really suitable for large commercial scale areas of sanding. However, the Flex WSE, with sanding sheets of 225mm diameter, is really up to the job. In fact, I had a bit of difficulty testing it because I had to find several large walls to fully try


22 ToolBUSINESS+HIRE Starting with the motor housing, this is like a large


angle grinder in shape with a big protrusion in the front that serves as a most welcome sanding control knob. The black and red plastic body is very solid and well shaped. Probably for the best, since it would just get clogged with dust and be impossible to clean, there is no rubberized overmould. There are only two controls, the on/off sliding switch on the left hand side of the body and the rotary speed control dial at the rear. A generous 5 metre length of heavy duty electric cord means that you have a wide working radius, especially when you are connected (as you always should be) to the vacuum extractor unit. The motor is one of the


quietest on a sander I have ever used, as well as being very smooth in operation too, so operators should not have any white knuckle rides after extended use. I have already mentioned that


tool-less changing of modes is something that Flex is good at. Attaching the round or triangular sander heads literally takes less than five seconds as they simply click into place. To remove them, you simply have to press the release lever and pull the sanding pad off. Down the right side of the


body is a loop that holds the vacuum extractor hose firmly, but in such a way that it does not interfere with your hand holding


system to help collect dust otherwise it could not fulfill its main purpose of being able to sand right up to edges or into corners. Dust collection is optimized however, by making the dust collection holes on the sander pad as close to the edge as possible, where the vacuum system alone makes a pretty good job of collecting the dust. I did do quite a lot of sanding myself with the WSE


set, but I let a decorator friend of mine try it out just to see if he could confirm my impressions. He had a large wall area in a school corridor to fill and smooth


before painting it. He was totally impressed, and reckoned that the WSE set saved him at least two and half hours on the job, and possibly a lot more as he couldn’t really calculate just how long his ordinary sander would have taken. Flex also included a compact little vacuum dust extractor with the test kit, and it too performed very well as it was perfectly tailored to fit all the connections as well as having a set of standard vacuum tools included for cleaning up floors etc after work was done. Finally, let me mention the case again. Although it


is big, it is SO easy to pack the machine away at the end of the day because everything has its place and there is enough space inside to accommodate the cord and sanding sheets. Certainly a machine to recommend if decorating is your trade.


Reply No. 214 www.toolbusiness.co.uk


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