5" sanders

Andy Grant

Andy Grant

Well-known member
Any hot tips on 5" sanders? All I have is a 1/4 paper palm sander. It works okay, but dust collection would be nice and something bit more agressive too. I am sanding resin and also wood for boat building.

Andrew Holley:

How's that fancy sander working out?
 
Check over on the woodenboat forum. You'll find a few threads on sanders and dust collection there. Festool and Fein make good products, but they are spendy. You can buy conversion kits for most 5" orbital sanders so that you can hook them up to a vacuum cleaner. Also, I believe most shop vacs can now taka a HEPA filter. My Rigid can. I have a Makita 5" sander and just sand outside. Are you sanding resin/glass or paint, or both?

Nate
 
I got a Dewalt 5" random orbital sander last spring. Really llike it, price isn't bad and it has a dust collector.
 
I am sanding resin during the glassing process of boat building. Also sanding the cedar before glassing. But I could sand about anything depending on the project I am working on. I was looking at the random orbital's Dewalt, Porter Cable and Makita.

I do have a dust collection system for my shop, but it is not set up yet in it.
 
I love my 6" Festool, greatest piece of equipment I have bought so far for the shop, and it's full of tools.

Being able to switch to the rotory mode, it can sand/grind/cut anything, quickly, level and clean. I run my to the shop vac and there is no dust, sometimes chips/chunks, but no dust. In the randam mode, it beats any other sander I have own. Recently had six maple raise panels to sand. I hate working with maple as you always end up with sanding marks once you stain. This time I had none.

It isn't cheap at $440, plus it uses it's own sand paper, so figure another hundred for a good assortment of paper, but it's worth it. I am giving serious thought to picking up their router, based soley on how well the sander takes care of the dust.

Back to your question, I won't buy a 5" sander. Too small for my projects. I like I have said before Rigid makes a nice 6" sander, dual mode, 1/8 and 1/4. Hooks up securely to the vac and I believe they worked our their switch issues.

I am not a big fan the of the dewalt sanders. Didn't seem to have enough power and left alot of swirl marks, you have to move it very slowly.

If you interested, I would sell my old 6" metabo sander. Works good, doesn't have a whole lot of time on it and it in pretty good shap (now that it's fixed). Shoot me a pm if your interested.
 
I need to sand the inside of that strip built float. So I didn't want to go too big to fit the inside curves. If I really start sanding a bunch of stuff I will need a few different sized in sanders, but not quite yet.
 
Yes, but with what you are sanding, you need something aggressive, and I doubt you will find most 5" random oribital aggressive enough. The other one you might want to look at is Porter Cable's little belt sander. Seems like it's about a hundred dollars and a nice size, haven't seen any reviews of it yet, but I like most of the PC tools.

Good luck.
 
This little belt sander? It may be just what I need. Not too big, but it looks like it will remove some material.

41SGPP03RVL._AA280_.jpg


I am also consider this random orbital:

31Q5PY0Y4HL._AA280_.jpg


I probably could use both.
 
That is it. Looks like a very useful tool.

The other thing you might want to look for is an orbital attachment for an offset grinder. Assuming you have a grinder, an orbital attachment, might be cheaper?
 
I did pick up the little belt sander. I have only used it a few minutes, but so far so good. Easy for me to use with one hand and really takes off some material. I could angle it pretty good to just get the places I wanted too. I will need to get a hose to connect it to dust collection as it creates dust pretty fast.
 
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