The Craftsman palm sander was very hard to control. Engel also measured the sander for aggressiveness by sanding a poplar board for five minutes and measuring how much wood was removed. Then he measured the amount of dust the sander collected. The Craftsman sander removed nine grams of stock over the five minutes. Surprisingly sanding aggression dropped off when a vacuum was attached, only removing five grams of stock. Engel repeated the test two more times and got the same result both times.

In addition, Engel sanded clear Plexiglass to compare the sanders’ scratch patterns. The Craftsman sander had a poor scratch pattern. Engel found that the machines with the most uniform scratch pattern tended to be the most aggressive. With vacuum attached, the sander collects 88% of external dust.

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