grinder/sander question

Hi,

I am in the market for a grinder (or am I?). The problem is, that I am mightily confused. I read in a book (The Ding Repair Scriptures) that the “grinder” should not have more than 3.000RPM. So with that in mind I happily went to the local hardware store and asked the guy for a grinder. He showed me their selection and I was horrified to see that they all started in the vicinity of 12.000RPM. When I asked him for “grinders” in the 1.000 - 3.000RPM range he looked at me like I was crazy and said that the only thing that he could geuss I was talking about was I very low RPM “sander” or a “buffer”, neither of which they carried (they had sanders but they started at around 7.000RPM). I went to 2 other stores and neither had a sanding device with that kind of low RPM (plus I was looked at like I was crazy 2 more times). So what am I actually looking for? Is it maybe a “buffer” that all the ding repair people are talking about when they say “grinder”? Or are they just not making sanders/grinders with such low RPM anymore? Any help appreciated. I am royally confused.

Thanks,

Nord

Archive this…lots of info on it.Herb

There is plenty of info on sanders, polishers, grinders etc. in the archives. Start there. You are looking at a variable speed polisher/sander. No more questions until you have exhausted the archives on this subject as they( the archives) will answer all.

Milwaukee 7" Sander, variable speed 0-6000rpm, #6078. I’ve used this machine to sand 1000’s of surfboards.

Byron

Hey dude, there are tonnes of info in the archive. As a start, i use a variable speed Ozito sander/polisher which goes from around 900 - 3000 rpm max. I use the lowers speed for polishing and tricky bits. The Milwaukee sounds like the shit though. Might upgrade to one after a few boards. A small grinder may be useful for grinding laps that have gone wrong - but be very careful, they can eat through a board before you can blink - happened on my first board whilst trying to grind down some errant laps - had to patch and patch and the board now looks like a quilt. So i bought a dremel and never use the grinder anymore.

Good luck with it all

ado

after searching archives

the best choices are

Herb’s harbor freight variable sander for $20

or the 6078

grinders are too powerful.

here is my case:

I saw a 6078 for $200 variable speed 0-6000 sander.

I saw a Milwaukee grinder for $120 ($149 price) on sale. The 6154-20. variable 4000-11000 rpm. Then Carlo the mason guy rolls in the shop (he’d shown my dad how to do masonry work / brick stuff / hard tile) comes in. He says the 6154 he’s had for years, no issues. Grind Cut rocks marble, tile, even piping … . dust isn’t bad, just remember to aircompressor blow it out every so often. Carlo knows the guy at the front desk, and says I pay him, and he’ll get my sander with his account and major discount. Plus I got 3 free sanding pads.

So the $120 becomes a $90, I buy the 6154-20. Plus its about 5 lbs lighter, and much smaller and has what Tim the Toolman likes: more power than a 6078.

The guy and Carlo said its mainly a grinder, but 150 for 90 was too good to pass up, so I went with it. The guy offered a similar sized porter cable sander for $50 ($139 normally), but I said nah.

Carlo said when I fire it up, watch it, it’ll eat wood. But he said you can polish cars / marble with the right pads @ lower settings and if I can use it to sand, and you don’t have buy the trinity orbital tools: sander , grinder, polisher to work on other stuff than wood or fiberglass.

Take it home, I test it on some scrap foam with a 10k rpm 5" sanding pad at 4k rpm. Good. fast, but good.

Besides the guy on the JC glassing 101 video says get a vari-speed grinder if you can only get one

So far I sand my board around 4-6 k rpm, plus I can switch to grind mode.

No issues here. I notice if I crank it to 7000 + rpm, it’ll eat fast. It ate 1/2 of my logo in a blink of an eye at 8k rpm. But I bored the deck to the foam, and redid the logo and re patched the spot back to original.

BTW at 8k+rpm the sandpad gets thrown from the pad like a ninja star if you’re using adhesive. the newer velcro pads hold.

I like the velcro style sanding pad and velcro backed sanding pads. They call it hook and loop, but the niyas should call it velcro, cuz thats what it is.

Benny says you can buy a router control speed / rpm controller with a 10k rpm grinder and it will work at variable . . . my dad has a router controller but it doesn’t work if your grinder already is a variable . . .something about double rheostats not playing well.

Howzit surf_nord, First off ask for a 7" sander polisher, the ones they showed you were 4" grinders. Here’s a link to Makita variable speed snaders.Aloha,Kokua

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B0001GUE9U/sr=1-2/qid=1172521718/ref=sr_1_olp_2/105-9011889-9225223?ie=UTF8&s=hi

I just bought a sander/polisher, 600-3000RPM, off eBay. Thanks everyone for explaining what I needed!

Nord