For immediate release
KALAMAZOO, MI - April 1, 2021 ---- Starting in July 2021, Adjusta-Grit sanding paper, blocks, and discs will be available with digital controls. Additionally, Adjusta-Grit sanding belts will be available with digital controls by September 2021. The company will gradually retire the remaining inventory of mechanically adjustable sanding products.
Since 1999, Adjusta-Grit, developed and manufactured by Streamly Abrasives in Dismal Falls, MI, has been supplying the woodworking community with sandpaper, sanding blocks, sanding discs, and sanding belts that feature mechanically adjustable grits. The key mechanism was a small, lightweight dial connected to the edge of each abrasive product, which changed the grit in less than four seconds along calibrated increments. The adjustment initially ranged from 60 grit through 220 grit, saving woodworkers significant time and expense. Then in 2004, Adjusta-Grit upped the ante, producing all of their products with a range of 40 through 600 grit, allowing additional savings and flexibility.
Now all Adjusta-Grit products will be not only digitally controlled by any Bluetooth-paired device but will also change grits along a continuum rather than in discrete increments. This allows fine-tuning of the scratch pattern and saves wear and tear on the product, as the dial mechanisms tended to clog up after two hours of use. Accord- ing to independent field tests, the new Adjusta-Grit Digital sanding products can last as long as six hours before needing to be replaced. Plus, no dial or any other mechanism protrudes from the product.
The new, patented digital grit-adjustment technology was developed by undergraduate industrial technology students at Kalamazoo College, under the guidance of Professor Pelle Antoine and Streamly Abrasives founders Manny and Phil Shavitz. You can see Adjusta-Grit Digital specifications and schematics at Professor Antoine's website: www.kalamazoo.edu/tech/antoine/adjustagrit.
"We may be a little late to the digital revolution, but we're here and we're, uh, still clever," said Manny Shavitz at the Kalamazoo College press conference.
Streamly Abrasives, Ltd., has been manufacturing and supplying sanding and scraping products since 1949. Cofounders Manny and Phil Shavitz sold the company in 2019 to Splat Capital, a Connecticut hedge fund. The Shavitz brothers recently formed a Klezmer band, the Globalist Conspirators, which is currently touring the USA and the Middle East. Their music is available from jTunes.
-Dave Freedman
