Ridgid Oscillating Belt and Spindle Sander EB4424

Pros: Emerson induction motor, good ergonomics, belt sander attachment
Cons: Plastic, weak holders for the tilting table

Oscillating spindle sanders are not new to woodworking, They are, however, fairly new additions to the home shop.

About Oscillating Spindle Sanders

A spindle is round. A sanding spindle is sandpaper or other gritty material...

Pros: Very good at what it does. Easy to set up, take down and operate.
Cons: Location of handholds, the need of a very strong vacuum for adequate dust control.

I have been using this sander in my shop for several months. I use it to cope the ends of branches for butt joinery and to fine tune parts for the rustic twig furniture I make. This machine is not intended to replace a belt/disc sander but as a ...

Pros: Two Sanders in One: Oscillating Drum & Belt
Cons: None

Is this your dilemma... You just finished cutting out a piece of wood on your band saw and now you want to eliminate those tell-tale tooth marks and a couple of other mistakes before someone else comes around. Sanding will do the job, but how do you do...

Pros: Large work surface area, mixture of spindle and belt sanding.
Cons: Only purchasable at Home Depot and no servicing parts available

Long and short of it - good tool, but wouldn't recommend buying it. If you can get extra sleeves/parts readily, this is a really good benchtop sander. Make sure you talk with a Home Depot representative to see about getting parts (especially the sander ...

Pros: Lightweight, effective
Cons: Can't get supplies from H-D

I tried to buy sanding sleeves for this product and H-D no longer stocks them! H-D is the only seller of Ridgid power tools - so where do you go from here? You must special order them from Rigid. (see update below) H-D wanted to sell me a RYOBI sleeve kit. With this kit you get a series of various size sleeves some of which will not fit the Ridgid. And you have no choice of grits. When I bought the Ridgid, H-D sold fine/med/coarse of almost every size sleeve. Sears would never leave me high and dry like this. My mistake. The REALLY strange part - H-D is still selling this model sander. DONT BUY IT!!!!

UPDATE: You may be able to find individual sleeves at Sears and Rockler. To H-D's credit, they did take the sander back after I expressed my dissatifaction with them. But I'm still not buying any more Ridgid nor tools from H-D that aren't widely available elsewhere.

Pros: Dual purpose. Low price.
Cons: Low RPM

I purchased this model to take advantage of the 2-in-1 feature that it provides. It is a spindle sander and a disk sander in one(it does not have a disk sander on it but the spindle sander swaps out to become a stationary-orbital-sideways belt sander). This will allow me to do the inside and outside radius of anything I build. The RPM is a little slow so I can see me getting a higher speed disk sander in the future. This is perfect though for most of my work and now I can get curves and straights perfect.

Pros: Belt sander works great .
Cons: Can't change different tools .

I have had this Sander for about a year now - this is the second one I have had .
This one has done the same thing that the first one did - the belt attachment will not come off the shaft - Yes I removed the locking nut from the top and it wont budge .
I even tried a pry bar .
H/D took the last one back without question so I'll be taking this one back tomorrow back .
11/15/06
I took it back today and we got the Sander off using 2 Pry Bars - We discovered that the Bushings in the Sander are made of Aluminum and the Shaft is Steel which causes Oxidation .
They gave me a refund .