The Ryobi sander is very hard to control. It comes ready for PSA paper but the hook-and-loop base is user installed.

To measure the sander’s aggressiveness, Engel sanded a poplar board for five minutes and measured how much wood was removed. The Ryobi sander removed eight grams of stock over the five minutes and seven grams when a vacuum was attached.

In addition, Engel sanded clear Plexiglass to compare the sanders’ scratch patterns. The Ryobi sander had a good 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 86% of external dust.

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