Thread: Silencing Random Orbital Sanders

Ear muffs

You need to be careful with the hand tingling because long term it can lead to serious nerve damage as experienced by old chainsaw operators. Eventually the nerves in your hands will deaden and you will lose some or all pain and touch sensation. this can be very dangerous.

The BEST way around this is to get a new sander - best excuse you will ever have! I have the same problem with my Ozito that I have tried to kill multiple times but I cannot seem to do it. OTOH the Festool ROS I have I can use all day.

Standing on a rubber mat will not help.

If you don't have the readies for a new sander the next most effective thing to use is a pair of gel-padded gloves which absorb vibration. Just like most things there are real gel padded and pretend gel padded gloves. There's no guarantee that the cheap ones will work but the two expensive ones I've tried both extremely well at suppressing vibe.
Expect to pay a lot of money for a good pair.
I have a pair that cost around $90 that I use with chainsaws, use but I don't wear them that much because they are very warm and the main chainsaw I bought them to use with I dot use that often.

Noise wise I recommend using ear muds.

Getting back to vibration, years ago I had an old B&D drill that worked fine as a drill but I also used it often for long periods as a flap sander on curved shapes. The sander attachment made it vibrate like crazy and made my hands numb. This suggested to me that the flap sander was out of balance and I should have just bought a new one but having very few $$$ at the time I gaffer taped a lump of lead onto the body of the drill and this made it tolerable. This is less likely to work on an ROS but it may be worth a try.

I have a load of those interlocking rubber mats for placing under the work piece.
Suppose padded gloves might help with the vibration.

As Bob says you can get nerve damage, also called white-finger I think, that was a common affliction with coal miners from extended use of pneumatic drills

Ear muffs, a Festool ETS 150 (for lower noise and comfort), and a floor mat. You may find you don't need the gel gloves with the ETS (which means you have $90 more towards it )

well yes, i use ear muffs..i use ear muffs for everything even hand sanding or paring with chisels. i dont like noise, im already hard of hearing, so try to avoid making it any worse. i am more concerned about the noise on the neighbours, and i was hoping to reduce the noise at the machine rather than attempting to soundproof the entire garage. i guess i cant really reduce the noise at the sander, so maybe ill buy the neighbours some earmuffs too

this milwaukee sander is a new sander. i bought it in january or early febuary of this year...I dont think its broken or poorly made. I quite like the machine. it hogs away material quickly with 80grit and 6mm orbit, and then gives me a nice finish at 120grit and above and 3mm orbit. it is a bit heavy for sanding vertical faces.

i didnt think about nerve damage, but it makes sense. i know that i already have issues in my wrist/hands and occasionally I have dull pain running through my right arm. i guess the vibrations is just aggravating a current condition making my hands tingly and numb. i probably should see a doctor but instead ill get some gelpadded gloves, they will probably work.

1. Get the gel gloves, you can use them with any vibrating tool, not just the ROS

2. If you are getting 'booming' noise from the bench - seems likely from the description of a mini earthquake - try putting some foam pads under the legs of the bench - even old packing foam would have some effect. Thickening up the bench top would also help - possibly even just adding a chunk of something dense like a bit of hardwood fence post from Ikea Roadside roughly in the middle may dampen the noise while keeping the weight down.

Originally Posted by bsrlee

Thickening up the bench top would also help - possibly even just adding a chunk of something dense like a bit of hardwood fence post from Ikea Roadside roughly in the middle may dampen the noise while keeping the weight down.

That'll mean more sanding.

Originally Posted by FenceFurniture

Ear muffs, a Festool ETS 150 (for lower noise and comfort), and a floor mat. You may find you don't need the gel gloves with the ETS (which means you have $90 more towards it )

The Mirka CEROS is even better than the ETS; quieter, less vibration and half the size.

I use fingerless bicycle gloves for vibration, lots of padding on the palm but you can still use your fingers to feel for any imperfections.

I hadnt seen that mirka before. Looks awesome, but 120volt and I need to import through a friend in the states since its electric?

Originally Posted by Kuffy

I hadnt seen that mirka before. Looks awesome, but 120volt and I need to import through a friend in the states since its electric?

No, you can get it here. The sander itself is DC and comes with a universal voltage transformer.

Originally Posted by elanjacobs

The Mirka CEROS is even better than the ETS; quieter, less vibration and half the size.

Yeah....as long as you can handle having the transformer hanging around. 'Tis the only drawback - ok if you're sanding in the same place all the time I suppose.....

They'd probably sells heaps more of them if they released a version without the transformer.

Originally Posted by elanjacobs

I use fingerless bicycle gloves for vibration, lots of padding on the palm but you can still use your fingers to feel for any imperfections.

Good tip!

Originally Posted by FenceFurniture

Yeah....as long as you can handle having the transformer hanging around. 'Tis the only drawback - ok if you're sanding in the same place all the time I suppose.....

They'd probably sells heaps more of them if they released a version without the transformer.

I just have the transformer hanging off the back of the vacuum, never gets in the way.
Unfortunately, the transformer can't be done away with as the sander is DC.

Originally Posted by elanjacobs

The Mirka CEROS is even better than the ETS; quieter, less vibration and half the size.

I use fingerless bicycle gloves for vibration, lots of padding on the palm but you can still use your fingers to feel for any imperfections.

It depends on the level of vibe and how the often the trigger and fingers are used to work the sander.
I don't bother using gloves with the Festool as the level of vibe is so low and it has a nice place on top on the sander head to guide the sander with the left hand palm

The Ozito is another story, just a few minutes with that and the fingers on my right hand start to go numb. About 10 minutes and my hand is numb, then my right arm goes numb. The left hand has to grasp a C shaped handle on to of the sander to control the head of the sander so that eventually goes numb too. The longer I use it the longer everything stays numb afterwards. If I didn't have the gel padded gloves I wouldn't use it.

My experience with sanders is if the trigger is locked and more use is made of hand/palms to direct and control the sander then a basic padded glove is probably OK. However, if a finger is regularly held on the trigger and finger pressure is used to grasp/control the sander then vibe will come through the fingers so fingerless gloves are not going to be as effective. With the Ozito I tried regular padded bike gloves (full finger padding) for a while but they didn't really help much. Then when I got the full gel padded gloves for the chainsaw and when I tried these on the Ozito they made a big difference. The gloves do look a bit silly, like cricket batting gloves (and they also cost more than the Ozito sander), but they work very well. Unfortunately they are warm to hot. OK on cold/cool days but uncomfortable on warm/hot days.

The trigger finger problem on my chainsaw mill is solved by using a remote throttle like this.
The motorcycle throttle is connected via a cable to the trigger and mounted on the wrap handle (which has anti vibration mounts) and then the red soft rubber handle further protects the operator.
For added safety the MC throttle kill switch is also wired into the chainsaw kill switch circuit.
This works a treat - not quite as good as the Festool but close

They have a new one without the transformer. Woodcraft.com have it listed at 595usd