Thread: Random Orbital Sander questions

If your after a serious ROS machine then go for a FEIN. They are expensive but are way ahead of the rest. I have their 6" and 8" machines and the 8" machine is just an awesome machine.

You don't really know what our SilentC is like do you?

I've kinda gone a bit cold on the idea now. I had a look at the prices and at the cost of consumables and then thought about what use I'd have for it. The only use I can think of for one is large flat areas like tops and panels, but I tend to hand scrape and then hand sand those. For hogging off large amounts of material, I've got a belt sander and for rough first sanding I've got the palm sander with which I just use the dry lube stuff that comes in rolls and I use the same paper for hand sanding too.

I find the belt sander just sits in the cupboard most of the time because belts are so expensive and I tend to buy them only when I need them, so consequently I never have one when I need it, so use the palm sander instead. I don't want another situation like that.

Jury is still out on it.

Originally Posted by silentC

Jury is still out on it.

The evidence before the court is
Incontrovertible, there's no need for
The jury to retire...

Get the Metabo.

I'm not planning on sanding any walls, Waldo

Originally Posted by silentC

I'm not planning on sanding any walls, Waldo

I hate sanding them too, much better to listen.

Maybe look at one of these.

Faced the will I use it enough to justify the purchase price dilema. Whilst I do like the Metabo stuff (very happy with my Metabo drill & sabre saw), it didnt make sense for me in this instance.

Have a pretty good place in town that does repairs in house & sells tools. He put me onto the bosch. Yes he does sell Metabo gear. (Alltools agent)

His view on the Bosch was: the usual thing that goes on this sander is a bearing. Cheap, off the shelf item, not a specialist part.

$150 bucks later I walked out the door with one. Use mine mostly for paint removal off weatherboards. Has had plenty of use, happy to recommend.

SilentC

i would buy a cheapy to test if it's what you want maybe an Ozito , thats what I did as I couldn't justify the $ without giving it a try { catch 22 } the ozito is about $20 for the 125mm 7 hole

Looks like it's too late for Silent.

On unpacking my new Duo Tec I noticed the words "reserved for SilentC" scratched out and "Skew ChiDAMN!!" pencilled over the top with crayon. My sympathies, Silent!

Of course I had to take it for the mandatory test-spin ASAP. We have an outdoor table made from some malaysian rain-forest timbers that has been left outdoors without being oiled. The top slats had all buckled and warped and the whole thing had become rather unattractive. (To say the least!) A prime candidate for a test subject.

An hour later and I had it flattened beautifully, still on the first disc of 60 grit and still plenty of life left in the disc. No complaints from me there!

I could've flattened the table a LOT quicker using the same grit in the belt-sander, but that wasn't the point of the exercise. In future I'll use the belt-sander for flattening - it's way more aggressive - and the ROS for final finishing. (Which is what I bought it for, after all)

The only complaint I have is the ^$#$% dust-bag. Too, too small, needing emptying every couple of seconds. Well... it feels like that once you've emptied it for the umpteenth time in half an hour. And it needed to be forcibly pushed on to engage the catch, which made "unlatching" it again another exercise in brute force. If I didn't, the damned thing fell off the instant I hit the On switch.

One of those auto-switching shop-vacs is a must for this toy!

(Waldo? Mate? Buddy? Can I borrow yer ePay account? )

Silent

replace the palm sander

after this weekend's effort, I've decided that my "desert island" sander is a palm sander.

a ROS's will take off a lot more material and sand a large flat area pretty quickly, but you can do as well or better with a couple of well tuned hand planes and a scraper

However, it's really hard to beat the palm sander when it comes to sanding the end grain on a round table top



ian

Originally Posted by Skew ChiDAMN!!

(Waldo? Mate? Buddy? Can I borrow yer ePay account? )

Let me know and I'll put a bid in for you.

I've recently bought the older model Metabo Duo

I've had quite a few ROS including Festool, and use them almost everyday. I can honestly say, the Metabo is the best ROS I've owned The finish is superb, zero scratching.
For the $$$ they just can't be beaten.