Its been proven for two decades that the most economical and fastest method to make a rough surface smooth has been to use a random-orbit palm sander. No matter if youre in the woodshop or a building site or even around the house, the palm sanders are smooth and aggressive. As tool designs have come around to evolve, vibration has been diminished and dust collection has seen improvement. However, whats most important is that the 5-inches sander can produce a good finish.
First using the PICO-grit pads and then using the P220 grit pad, 9 hoop-and loop-base 5 inch palm sanders were used to sand a cherry board with each sander until the surface was smooth with satisfaction. When the cherry boards were actually stained and shellacked, they were not distinguishable. A few differences occurred such as some sanders took longer than others to accomplish that result, as well as variations in comfort and dust collection.
An evenly distributed scratch pattern may seem like some sort of contradiction for as random orbit sanders, but that just means that not one specific area is abraded more than the other. These palm sanders establish an across-the board scratch pattern by...