orbital swirls arggggh

[soundman]

My little orbital sander is in discrace.

I'm preparing some stock for a cabinet I'm making & I used my little palm sander to do a few bits of clean up on the pannels prior to futher processing.

After grain filling & was running the random orbit over them to progress the finish.

ARRRGH, look at those swirls.

the orbital sander had left these uggly swirly wounds all over the place that took me some time to sand out.

Now I supose I'm spoilt, i very rarely use the orbital for anything but edges, the random orbit does the flats for me so well.

I now understand how people can get such uggly swirly marks all over the place that are sooooo hard to get out.

beware your orbital sander and go easy with the gritt if you don't want swirls even 120 gritt can make a real mess.

long live random orbit sanders

[Smiffy]

There is nothing worse.

The thing that puzzles me is how two sanders fitted with the same paper, like the sanders I have can give different results.

The cheap one makes a mess and the other more professional one can sand all day with no swirls.
What is it that more expensive orbitals do that a cheap one does not?

Cheers,
Raymond.

[Kev Y.]

At arough guess smiffy, the expensive ones RANDOM orbital sand where as the cheap ones ORBITAL sand.

[echnidna]

smiffy.
I think it might be the speed.
I got a cheap arlec OS from kmart, its a crap quality tool but its a lot higher speed than any other cheap orbital I have ever encountered and it gives a great finish

Now if the infernal thing had better sheet holding clamps it would be an excellent tool, but sandpaper falling off all the time grrrrr.

So my ROS is preferred

[Mmcbain]

I was so glad to see this post, as I had been wondering about the difference between orbital and ROS.

I had also been thinking about purchasing a generic brand ROS for about $40 from Bunnings, but after reading all the previous posts, looks as that may not be a good idea.

Do all ROS's have round disks, and if not, what is the preference? Any recommended brand?

Thanks guys.

[Slavo]

mmcbain,

Most ROS I know of have round sanding disks, usually 5" (125mm) or 6" (150mm).

I have a bosch PEX400AE and am very happy with it, although you will find a range of opinions on ROS if you search through previous posts.

If you are going to use it heaps, go for a good quality brand and hold on to it for years or if you want to take part in todays disposable society, get an elcheapo and throw it away after you have finished the job.

Cheers
Slavo

[soundman]

Any ros is better than none that said

My mate chris had the cheap bosch ros & it was fine & beaut but he recently upgraded to the metabo duo after using mine & is a definite convert.

The matabo goes for arround $375 on the street there were good deals last wood show on them.

the festo machines have a real good rep and makita make one similar but my vote goes to the metabo.

cheers

[Shane Watson]

I won't go past Festo, When I was running my business I was running mine averaging 9hrs per day 5.5 days a week and never had a problem sanding the finest of dust particles. Metabo ran a close second but bearings were an issue with the fine dust and also comfort. I still have and use regurlarly my very first festo its replacement (i got on sale one day) is still sitting in its original packaging waiting for the old one to die, hasn't happened yet.....I would have gone through dozens of cheaper alternatives in the mean time..

Cheers

[MF3106]

Hi All

I also purchases a Bosch PEX400AE for about $150 at Bunnings and have been very happy with the results. I was going to purchase the smaller model for around $99 but was pursuaded to get the PEX400AE, and have newver regretted the decision. One thing that helped pusuade me towards the Bosch was the dust collection which seems to be excellent. When I empty the dustcollector and see the (almost talcum powder like) dust in there and almost non on the workpiece I think that is worth the premium over the el cheapos alone.

[PaulS]

I've got a Bosch RAS, and actually hook it up to a household vac, rather then use the dust collection. It's great! no dust anywhere!!

[Smiffy]

Sorry to deviate a wee bit away from the subject of this thread, but since we are on the subject of the differences between cheaper sanders, here goes....

I can understand that more expensive random orbitals may do a better job than the cheapo ones maybe due to the way it randomizes its orbits.

A belt sander on the other hand only drives a belt around, so surely the real tool here is the belt itself.
I had a real job for my 'cheapest of the cheap' belt sander (£20 in our money) expecting it to fail. I sanded huge solid wood worktops for hours, the sander heated up alarmingly and it did have a tendancy to slow down a wee bit given some pressure, but other than that it did the job brilliantly.

I half expected (and kind of hoped) that it would fail and thus have justification to get the Dewalt (£200) model I had my eye on. But damn, it is still doing its thing and I still have plenty of the dozen or so belts that came with it.
Bloody good value for money then, because it happens to be about the same money to get that amount of belts.
So what does a £200 belt sander have over a £20 one?

The sander is a NUTOOL.
My ROS is an ELU(remember them?) and between the two tools all my sanding needs are satisfied.

Cheers,
Ray.

[Shane Watson]

The problem from a commercial view is the bearings. Besides ROS don't have belts, well not to my knowledge anyway. Once the fine dust gets into the bearings it won't last.

[soundman]

Your belt sander is a much more brutal device. I have one also.

Probably one of the most important things to do to a belt sander is to flatten the platten and make sure it has a graphite slip cloth on the platten.

a little tuning improved mine no end.

one would ecpect the cheaper ones to be less well behaved.

A belt sander can make a real serious mess if you aren't right on top of the method.
forget the swirls, milimetre deep gouges.

I use mine for general wood burchery.

[Smiffy]

What is that method Soundman?

The worktops I mentioned I was sanding were 650mm wide made of two laminated planks. The source I bought the wood from were asked to dress it to 40mm but it was covered in deep planer marks and also actually ranged between 40mm and 43mm. As you can imagine after joining the two planks, I had big valleys and steps to take out as well as some pits where the suppliers planer did not touch the wood so it was all hairy. No to mention that I was sanding a particularily hard wood (Scottish ASH).

I used a power planer to take some of the larger thickness differences away and then persevered with 60 grit on the belt sander for about 4 hours solid on a 3M length ...phew :eek:
Then it was onto 100 grit for another two hours and finally 120 using the ROS.
I wish I hired a floor sander.
If you or anyone else can suggest a better way then I would be grateful.
I was pleased with the result but it took a LOT of effort.

I remember the days when I worked in a workshop with a large vertical belt sander with huge belts. The job would have been done in 10 minutes but then again my sanders belt is 75mm and the workshop machine was close to 1M.
Ah...those were the days :D

[Mmcbain]

Thanks for all the info guys, I am much better informed and can now move to checking out equipment and actually know what I am looking for - a nice change.

I must say as a new comer to woodworking / restoring, I am beginning to get quite excited about power tools ! !


Cheers.

Marls

If you want more info, start another thread deidicated to your questions, pics.

[Salty]

The December 2004 issue of FWW, pages 40 - 45 has a good article on sanding. Although it doesn't mention the "industrial" belt sander end of the process it does cover ROS, Pad, Detail and Hand sanding in detail.
Salty:cool:

[Harry72]

I find my Proton elcheapo air driven dual action(ROS!)does a good job, trouble is with these sanders are they are very CFM hungry the poor old 14cfm compressor cops a hammering.

[scooter]

Re the question why cheaper orbitals leave swirls, I think it's the bearings falling to bits that gets shrapnel on the workpiece......... :p

Having said that I was happy with an Arlec Enforcer ROS from kmart for several years before scoring my metabo for a goodie price. The Arlec is still going BTW.


Cheers......Sean, no swirls on me