Best general purpose sander – Brand New Woodworker
Jbuller
| Posted in General Discussion on
Hello Everyone,
I’ve been interested in woodworking for a long time and finally decided to give it a shot and build my first patio chair! Learned a lot haha! I am looking to buy a sander but not sure which style to get.
Is there a good “all around” sander that will work for most beginner projects?
Replies
I'd recommend starting with a 5" or 6" random orbital sander depending on the size of your projects. They aren't too expensive and are readily available at hardware stores. They will work best when you progressively sand through the grits, avoiding the temptation to skip from a rough surface to sanding with 220 or a finer finishing abrasive. Hope this is helpful.
For a finishing sander I like a 5 inch random orbit with variable speed. I chose Milwaukee but all the major manufacturers sell them for around $100 except Festool which is a lot more expensive.
When hand sanding is required, I like the Preppin' Weapon sanding blocks.
IMO 5" is more versatile than 6" especially if you will be doing smaller surfaces. I use my 6" when I have a big surface like a table top, but the smaller for everything else. I think you cant go wrong with any of the major brands of ROS - Bosch, Makita, DeWalt, Milwaukee, etc. I'd just look at the ads for whichever you find at a good sale price.
I just purchased a Bosch 5" orbital and have really enjoyed working with it. Mine has variable speed and came with carrying bag. It was about $60 at my local Menards.
I agree, random orbital is the way to proceed. But you REALLY should make preparation for dust control. Even a 220 or a 320 grit disc can create a tremendous amount of dust.
Ha ha - it's the wrong question. The right one is: how many sanders do I need and of what kinds? :-)
But the other lads are right - for a first sander a random orbital is most versatile. It's really a finishing sander, though. It can't remove wood at the rate of, say, a belt sander. It's also a bit awkward to get into tight spots; impossible to get into corners if it's round. Already, then, you need a delta shaped sander to complement the round RO.
One version of a round RO sander has two modes: the finishing but also the more aggressive removal mode. Festool do several of course (Rotex) which only cost one arm and part of a leg. It's very effective, mind; and lasts for decades.
Here's a teeny one. Even this can give you a lethal sticker-shock. The big one will shred your whole bank account.
https://www.festoolusa.com/products/sanding-and-brushing/gear-drive-eccentric-sander-rotex/571823---ro-90-dx-feq-plus-usa
As others have mentioned, don't forget the dust extractor. Some dusts will get into your body and rot it. In all cases, dust remaining at the sanding interface will stop any sander from working properly.
Lataxe
I must admit that I use my Black and Decker Mouse sander more often than I expected to, for detail work and inside corners.
I agree with Lataxe. Don't expect this to be your last or only sander. I currently have a 4" belt sander for large panels, a 5" Rotex for general sanding, a delta for getting into tight places and a linear sander for contoured surfaces.
And get the dust under control. Not only do you get a better result, your abrasives last longer, and you can't undo the damage that exposure to fine wood dust does to your lungs.
Learn to use scrappers, no dust, no noise and you can easily hear the tunes in the shop. The learning curve is not too steep, there are plenty of video's on the web and also in FWW.
Thank you to everyone that took the time to give me advice! Just based on everyones responses i'm very glad I joined this forum. Thank you!
Yes a 5 inch random orbital sander as many suggest. The disks you use also make a big difference. Use good quality disks like those made by Norton or some other good companies. You will need to change the disks fairly often. Go from 120 to at least 180 or 220 in succession of grits. Don't buy cheap-o sanding disks they will not give a quality surface.
I recommend you to buy an orbital sander, it is easy to use and with orbital sanders(https://www.bestorbitalsander.com/) you will get bigger sanding jobs done much more quickly. It is powerful, around 12,000 orbits per minute. Another moment that for someone is important maybe for you too, it is it's price around 100$, mine cost me 160$, but it's worth it.If you said you are a beginner, it's easy to use this tool. I remember myself, when I start to work with wood but it gets much easier when you train. So what can I say more, this tool is perfect for beginners.
I second the Bosch 5”. Great dust control
Festool and Mirka make top of the line electric orbital sanders. Bosch makes a very nice version with excellent dust control for significantly less, but value is personal. A 5" random orbit is a good starting point.
I would suggest using a “net” style disc with the orbital sander. Something like Abranet. The open mesh abrasive lets a vacuum attachment ,.suck up the sanding dust very efficiently. I use the discs all of the time manually with sanding blocks, etc. like them much better than garnet paper, etc.
I’ll be the odd man out and say your first sander should be a sanding block and your arm, and learn to touch and feel the wood.
I do believe it’s important to learn to communicate with the wood early on because if you treat it as a mere object, you’ll never learn why it does certain things.
So when it misbehaves you’ll understand why.
Well .... it depends. ...... If you can get the habit of forming most final dimensions with hand planes, then a block with sandpaper can be a practical final step.
I've just lipped endless strips of cherry veneered blockboard with 1/4" - 1/2" solid cherry strips, planing the slightly oversized strips down a little to be co-planar with the block board veneer surface. It's a lot quicker to plane them down than it would be to sand them down to be co-planar.
Planing around 1/32" each side off such proud strips without planing off the veneer as well requires a thin shaving to avoid biting the veneer. In addition, one stops the planing a thou or four before getting down to the level of the veneer. That last teeny-weeny lip of solid wood is best sanded down to the exact level of the veneer if a plane bite to the veneer is to be avoided. A sanding block with a fine sandpaper can do that in a reasonable time.
But if the purpose of sanding is to remove significant amounts of wood as well as to provide a final finish, a hand sanding block isn't going to, er, cut it without hours and hours of hard work.
Personally I've come to prefer planing off bulk to within a hair of the final finishing. Sometimes the planing is enough but I usually hand-sand a final fine grit before beginning to apply the finish. An RO with a small diameter orbit can do that final sand but even so, you can take too much too easily with a machine. Hand sanding the last teeny bit is safer.
And, as you say, hand sanding does teach things about the nature of the wood that aren't so obvious when machine sanding.
Lataxe
I prefer to get a smooth surface in this order hand plane, cabinet scraper, card scraper, sanding block, rasp, file, and only when necessary, belt sander, ROS. Bigger sanding machines would be needed for more complex shaping when nothing else can do it better too.
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