what to look for in a sander

sorry guys this seems to be a topic popping up too much lately(sanders etc) but here goes,

im confused as to what to look for in a sander. Being from New Zealand, all this harbour freight, clark modified, walmart jargon is past me. Ive started sanding #002 with an orbital (vibrating) sander but its taking way to long even with 40 grit, went down to a tool shop and was shown random orbital (spinning disc) with rpm 3000 upwards but variable spped so i imagine you can also make it go slower with a light touch, he plugged it in and showed me, it seemed not too fast to get worried about, there was nothing slower as far as i could see. this model was made by GMC and was cheap (maybe 40US bucks). Will this perform for a backyarder?

It seemed there wasnt much choice, all the grinders were 10,000 rpm and up and this was a big shop. I cant fork out for an expensive model due to unemployment issues… This sanding has really put me off making boards as it took me a couple o hours just to get round the fins down

cheers

tom

Hey Tomd,

I’m sure you’ll find a bunch of info and opinions if you do a search for sanders. If you just want some basics, here are a few tips. I must say, I’m no board pro but I’m pretty good with tools.

Look for a 7" variable speed sander/polisher. The difference between that and what you’ve been using will be like night and day to you. Be careful at first and run is at low rpm until you get used to it. Get one that goes down at least to 1000 rpm. 0-3000 is a good range. They all pretty much have a 5/8" arbor but make sure so all the standard pads will attach to it.

Again, do a search for sander or just check the recent post about Harbor Freight Angle Grinders to get some discussion on VS sanders.

Good luck.

And try to find something with a dust kit. Something that you can hook up to your shop vac. The hose may be a pain in the ass sometimes, but it is real nice to get most of the dust out of the air.

Hey man

Yeah I went through the whole sander research thing a while ago too.

The only cheapish one here I found that is appropriate is the ryobi sander polisher.

Cost me NZ$115 from Bunnings. seen them for about $130 from Mitre10.

Random orbitals arn’t the right tool to use.

3000rpm is about the max you ever use, you need something that goes right down to slow speeds.

The ryobi is OK, perfectly good for backyard shaping.

I’ve heard they don’t last if your in production.

It’s a big jump up to the Metabo or Hitachi ones, at around 500 - 600 bucks. and they are big powerful tools.

The ryobi is 1500watt and perfect weight.

It starts at around 1000rpm, which is fine, but it can’t handle any lower speeds. Goes up to 6000, which you’ll never use, but it means you can use it as an angle grinder when you need one for something else.

Those GMC ones might be alright, but I didn’t think the low speed on them was good enough, they are an angle grinder, rather than a sander/polisher, so they are built for high speed.

The ryobi is the way!

Kit

edit: oh yeah, forgot to say - the sanding pads are expensive! the thread is M14 in New Zealand, not 5/8".

You need the soft foam pads, the foam is really squishy and about an inch thick. don’t be suprised to see them for $70!!

shop around and get one for $50, or make your own. one of the 180mm or 200mm ones are great, and I have a 150mm (ish) one that is good for taking down fin plugs. I’m gunna re-use the backing-disks and make my own foam pads when these wear out, new ones are too damn pricey. Could be an option for you, find a cheaper pad and stick foam onto it.

Don’t use one of those stiff black rubber backing pads!! you’ll destroy anything you touch with those.

Hey Kiwis,

Sounds like equipment can be a bit pricey down under. You might try the thread that’s going now called “how about some sanding questions”. I posted my custom pad which can give you some ideas. You can change the density of foam a make all sorts of pads.

My very first attempt at sanding was with a drill and a 4" hard plastic disc. That was miserable. I got some spray glue and some 3mm wetsuit neoprene. I cut 3 discs of neoprene, each a little larger than the previous, then spray glued them together on the plastic disc. Worked pretty nice for the repairs I was doing.

I’ve since upgraded and the full sized tool is great, but there are many ways to get a job done.

Good luck.

Hi Tom,

A couple of things, which will be heresy to some;

First off, what everybody is talking about is, in the main, big, 11+ amp disc sanders that use a 400mm ( 8 inch) foam pad, which are a lovely production tool and can sand a lot away, fast. But it’s not a beginner’s tool. Again, they can sand away a lot, fast. Especially stuff you really wanted to keep, like the glass and the resin and the first few millimeters of foam.

It takes a fine, experienced touch to get one of 'em to do fine work, like sanding very thin laminates over soft foam. They were basicly built to sand things like heavy paint buildup on steel or polish cars. That they are used to sand and polish surfboards is more testimony to the skills of the sanders than the tool itself. It’s kinda like shaving with a chain saw.

Grinders are meant for grinding steel and general metals, using Very Hard discs turning at Very High speed. Or, with a wire brush attachment, removing rust and crud from metal. As an aside, I got a cheap one for the restaurant I was working in this summer, it was and is lovely for getting the smeg off the cast iron grills we grilled fish and chicken and stuff on, got it down to nice white clean metal in seconds rather than hours by hand with steel wool scrub pads.

But they’d eat surfboard glass alive. Maybe useful for coarse shaping of solid glass fins, but beyond that, no.

Now, you have been using an orbital sander, probably one of those that uses a quarter sheet of sandpaper? Or perhaps a half sheet. Also a good tool, but it was meant for doing finish work on wood and furniture and that sort of thing. It won’t hack away a lot of material fast, it’s not meant to.

Enter the Random Orbit ( or random orbital - the terminology is a mite confusing) sander. Typically they use a 250mm or 300mm disc of sandpaper, They don’t spin like the big discs, nor do they vibrate like the orbitals. They can remove a fair amount of material, with an agressive grit disc, and they can also be toned down with low RPMs and finer paper to do a nice, finish-quality job.

‘Will it perform for a backyarder?’ Hell yes. It won’t do it nearly as fast as a 13 amp Milwaukee or other 8" disc sander, but that’s fine - your chances of ruining your glass job are also much less. It’ll work a lot faster than the orbital. I used one exclusively for years, doing lots of ding work. Only got an 8" disc sander/polisher when I found myself sanding lots of broken boards, lots of boats and I happened to have $200 US I wasn’t doing anything useful with.

The model I use - granted, mine isn’t nearly as pretty now…

A few things to look out for, though:

I’ll note that the one you show has dust collection in it from the get-go. All well and good, but the glass and resin dust will do it no good, especially as the thing uses motor air to push the dust into that silly little canister filter. Use sandpaper discs with no holes in them, and brush, blow or vaccum the dust away as you’ve been doing with your orbital.

See how that one is set up; in theory you can use it one handed. Don’t. Your control will suffer and worse, your hand will block those slots up top that supply motor cooling air result, fried tool. Use both handles - buddy of mine has been using a similar Bosch for years with good results this way. Put it another way, palm-grip sanders suck for anything but the most dinky, home handyman work.

Avoid sanders that will only use hook and loop paper - like a Velcro backing. Not only are you nailed to what the makers supply ( can’t make your own discs in non-standard grits and all) but the damned things are expensive. The theory is that you can switch paper and reuse the ones you took off - nice for Joe Homeowner sanding a 1’ x 1’ area from coarse down to fine but it’s downright silly for anybody doing any real sanding.

Use press-and-stick sanders. The discs are cheap enough that reuse isn’t an issue, or have some wax paper to stick the used discs to.

Also, never be afraid to chuck a disc when it starts getting dull and heating things up rather than cutting cleanly. Paper is cheap, bubbled glass isn’t.

Anyhow, that’s enough to be going on with. Hope that’s of use…

doc…

perfect advice.

I just gotta re-inforce the bit about changing your disks as soon as they start cutting badly- this is SO IMPORTANT!

I’ve ruined a board, whilst trying to save myself $5 worth of pads. don’t wanna do it again.

The speed you get the job done with fresh disks pays for the increase in consumables.

Kit