So I’m hard at work finishing up the base of my workbench– I’ve been wielding the hand planes to date, but I’ve come to a problem I can’t solve– smoothing and finishing the stretchers. Without a workbench to clamp the stretchers, planing just isn’t going to happen on a 68″ board. I’ve managed with the legs and supports so far, but stretchers are a definite road block.
Enter Plan B, the orbital sander.
I should be able to take out the nasties and get a decent finish without the problem of holding the work with an orbital sander. Heck, the floor can support the work when it comes to this. Can’t hand plane on the floor. Been there, tried that. Not good!
So which to buy? I started looking online– always dangerous– and I even looked at Fine Woodworking’s orbital sander shootout. The varying degree of handling was pretty surprising. Some tools were hard to keep on the work– some were butter smooth. How can this be? How can two tools so similar handle so differently? Then I looked at specifications and something started to click– I want to float this by everyone and get your opinions.
Orbital sanders range from 5mm travel to 2mm travel. The tools FWW found most difficult to control– happened to coincide with the tools with the most travel. This sort of makes sense to me. FWW did downgrade these tools for their ill-handling ways– but I think they might have missed something:
Course, Medium, Fine.
Just like sandpaper grit and hand planes– I think these different sanders serve different purposes. Choose the 5mm travel for course and medium work, then switch to a 3mm travel with a fine grit for finishing. Shorter strokes means easier to handle, but also a finer finish. Lumping all of the sanders together in one test, might be missing a crucial point.
Does this theory hold water? And which is your preferred orbital of choice?
Replies
Your point about the orbit is well taken. Anyone who has used a Festool Rotex sander knows what a difference it is to control the tool when you engage the positive rotary drive as opposed to the floating rotation which is the standard way most ROS work. And of course, the larger the eccentric movement the more difficult it is to control.
I can only speak from the viewpoint of a professional cabinet shop. We own 3 electric ROS (in addition to air sanders) and they are in hard use every single day. We've had Bosch, PorterCable, Makita, and Mafell sanders. They hardly ever reach their first birthday. The Festool is the only one that just keeps going. Replace pads from time to time, carbon brushes when needed, but it's a workhorse. The 5mm orbit is perfect for us. If it was exclusively for finishing work then I'd prefer the 3mm orbit.
I know that it costs twice the price, but for us it's fully justified. Of course, if it's for occasional weekend use then that's a different set of considerations. I'm not a Festool agent, but this is one tool that they've made that's in a league of its own.
Have to agree with David. Tried many, and use planes more and more; but Festool ROS, IMHO is the only way to go. The initial sting of the price is soon forgotten when you see the results and the longevity.
Does the Festool or Fein have little vibration? I have a Dewalt and it makes your hand numb after a while of use.
What I'm supposing is the greater the oscillating distance of the pad, the more likely the tool will rattle your bones.
But if your doing course work-- stock removal-- this is a good thing. The tool will take more material in less time. But a tool with a 5mm travel would be ill suited for finishing work.
You could put a course pad on a 3mm travel tool, but it will take almost twice as long to remove stock as the same grit on a more aggressive travel distance like 5mm. But a 2mm or 3mm machine will be less likely to give you the nasty vibrations and will be easier to control.
The tools with the rotory option (no oscillation-- like the Festool RO series) remove stock extremely fast, they're more like a grinder than a sander, and they are very difficult to control, and fatigue becomes an issue quickly, according to my loose survey. In fact, the FineWoodworking round-up made that point very clear.
Again, I think once you get into the mindset of course, medium and fine, the tools start making a lot more sense. But who wants two or three random orbital sanders? Ha.. maybe everyone! We're tool junkies.
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