IGX

First of all, angle grinders in general are awesome. It's one of the mightiest House Ninja tools there is. I love mine so much I'm going to dig up my stepfather and slap him for not telling me.

They take many attachments so that you can sand, grind metal or masonry, cut metal or masonry, wire-brush, etc. You can do a lot of the same stuff with a power drill but with not nearly the same power or RPMs that an angle grinder provides.

I picked up a Ryobi angle grinder

http://www.homedepot.com/prel80/HDUS/EN ... -100049935

because I had some ugly and precise concrete-cutting to do around a plumbing job. Ryobi's not the absolute best name, but it has a very ergonomic handle that you can rotate to different positions, and the second "side handle" screws in in three different places as well. $40 price point on sale was good, too. So far it's cut steel and masonry like buttah, derusted steel very well with a wire cup brush, and stripped paint from chairs.

That brings me to the 3M Sand Blaster CleanNStrip system. This is a plastic adapter that screws onto a standard angle grinder's thread, plus these sanding discs that look like nylon scrubbies gone berserk. I picked this up because I had three Adirondack chairs that really needed new paint, but the old paint is in that annoying phase were some of it is flaking, some of it is stuck on really well, and some is in between.

Sandpaper wasn't making it. The coarse CleanNstrip disc took it right off without damaging the wood underneath. I did 2 chairs and a footrest in about 30 min. and the disc looks like it's good for a lot more. They're a little pricey at retail, but the local discount places are carrying them for cheap, and I'm going back tomorrow and buying all they have left. These things are great.

GDG!