Hey I’m 18 and I’ve only shaped a few boards so far. So far I have been hand shaping them completely without any power tools but for christmas I want to ask for some to make my life a lot easier. I’ve decided on a hitachi planer, ryobi router, and a cheap harbor frieght sander/polisher but I am a little confused after reading some forum topics on here. Why are guys using grinders? Are they really necessary or could I get by with a normal sander/polisher? What jobs would you do with grinder and with a sander? Thanks!
Don’t use the harbor freight sander, it only has speed control via the rotary knob on the handle. You should get a Milwaukee or dewalt that has speed control via the trigger,it allows for much greater control.
planinghall thanks for heads-up. I plan on getting a milwaukee eventually but for now I feel like a harbor frieght is all I need. Do you know the uses of a grinder vs. sander though?
The new Harbor freights are fucking horrible. We had an issue a few weeks back where we had to go buy 3 due to an overlap between our new Dewalts arriving and our Milwaukees in for tune ups…
We killed all 3 in 1 day… we had to go back 2x because the arbors are wobbly as hell. meaning big nasty swirls.
15 boards so an average of 5 boards to kill one.
For 70 bucks more get a refurbed dewalt.
Grinder is generally single speed and higher rpms around 6000… You dont want this.
Sander/polishers are usually variable speed and run from zero to the 3000-3500 range.
The variable helps as you use different speeds with different grits. Also different pads have speed limits as well.
If you can’t afford the Milwaukee, try the Makita. It has variable speed, it’s light which helps an inexperienced user, and fairly durable. I have both and use the heavier Milwaukee for doing the rough stuff and the Makita for finish work. But both are quite capable of doing the whole job.
Wow I didn’t know they were that unreliable… From what i’ve read they are fine for the average garage shaper but I guess that’s not the case. I guess I’ll have to get a refurb. So basically you’re saying grinders are worthless? I’m just trying to figure out why people say they use grinders for cut laps and other functions where I thought a sander was the tool for that job.
Right on johnyfever, it looks like I’ll be getting a milwaukee and do it right from the beginning. I’ll just have to ask for that in place of an extra blank because of the budget:/ haha
Die Grinders for laps… Pnuematic… 10 bucks… THAT I would reccomend from harbor freight.
The Previous HF Sander Polishers were Hitachi Clones and Pretty Decent. The new ones are the Bosch Clones.
Id reccomend the Dewalt over the Milwaukee just saying.
Do a search I wrote a good review of all the Dewalts we just bought a few months back.