Sanders

[sparkus88]

Hi I am just starting a beside table and just finished a desk my only hand held sander I have is pro performance random orbital sander. I don't know whether its the sander or the discs but when I was sanding the desk it left quite deep gouges and marks on lower grits like 60 and 100. I went up to 240 grit on the sander but it couldn't get rid of them, it also left spiral marks which were hard to remove too. So I think I need a new sander, have no idea what to get. Whats the difference between random orbital and just orbital sanders? Budget of around £60 any suggestions of good models?

thanks
Mark

 

[Teckel]

Why were you using such a coarse grit to start with??
60grit is very coarse and you probably didn't sand enough with the 100 to take out scratches and then went to 240, then the fine dust showed up the scratches.
I have a 6" makita orbital. I very rearly use anything coarser than 100 grit as it comes out of the machine pretty smooth.

 

[Stormer1940]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_orbital_sander

I use to have an old black and decker orbital sander which took ages to do anything but decided to splash out on the bosch gex150ac http://www.screwfix.com/p/bosch-gex150a ... 240v/96673

Got to say I was impressed, never had a problem with ring marks or gouges..

If timber is being painted I find that 80 grit is ok to use...

 

[sparkus88]

I went through several grits 60, 80, 100, 120, 180, 240, then 320 hand sanding block. I'm relatively new to woodworking and thought thats what you're meant to do. I take it thats wrong. I have a bench top P/T from axminster so its not the best finish straight out the thicknesser.

 

[Teckel]

You are right to go up grades. Maybe you do need a new sander. Does you're p/t blades need sharpening??
When I was doing restoration we would start on 100 grit 180 then 240 320 then finish with 600 grit. All this was done by hand with blocks of timber with some carpet stuck to it, and this was sometimes done on 6 leaf dining tables. These tables were sometimes nearly 14ft long.
The sweat was dripping then....

 

[sparkus88]

These tables were sometimes nearly 14ft long.
The sweat was dripping then....

Lol this is the main reason I want a decent powered sander. I hadn't thought about getting the P/T blades sharpened, had it about 8 months and only used it for 3 projects plus occassional light use inbetween.

 

[sparkus88]

So any suggestions for a decent power sander?

 

[goldeneyedmonkey]

This one here (Metabo SXE 450). As has been said before you just need to go through the grits progressively, and don't use such aggressive grits to start with, leave the sander on the random orbit setting and you shouldn't have a problem. Practice on a spare piece of timber first and apply a finish to see how well you've done.

I doubt you'll find a bad review for that sander, pretty much bomb proof.

Cheers _Dan.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I would be tempted to look at a third or quarter sheet sander if you intend doing a lot of work, because you don't need dedicated paper - you buy paper by the 50m roll and save a load of money. You can usually buy the plates to punch the holes for dust collection. (half sheet ones are fine if you've acres to do, but they're a lot heavier).