Should you buy an Orbital Sander or a Palm Sander?
Written: Jul 27 '02 (Updated Jul 27 '02)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: VELCRO PADS! Great Size, Weight & Power
Cons: The Dust Bag falls short of expectations
The Bottom Line: The orbital is small, lightweight & powerful. Well suited for walls and other large spaces. It is worth the initial investment, and has lasted through many years & projects.
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| jktucker's Full Review: DeWalt Heavy-Duty 5 Random Orbit Sander DW421 |
I NEEDED A POWER SANDER
When I moved into my home—a house built in 1927—I had some projects I knew I would need to complete. The first was to strip layers of wallpaper (and paint) off of the master bedroom walls. I tried many different things to remove the wallpaper—commercial liquid stripper, an iron & spray bottle, and a scraper. I was eventually left with an uneven, but mostly paper free, wall. It was time to get a sander.
WHY DID I BUY THE RANDOM ORBIT SANDER?
I went to the Home Depot & purchased the DeWalt Heavy-Duty 5 Random Orbit Sander DW421. I am not really sure why I chose this model; except my impression at the time was that an orbital was beefier than the palm sander (perhaps I got this impression from the price, which was a little higher than that of the palm sanders). I knew that I would it for future projects, and I wanted a tool that would last. I also needed to feed my sanding habit. I had been planning this purchase for a while; and I knew that once I bought a sander I would be sanding things for a long time to come. I also liked the fact that the orbital had pads that attached with Velcro instead of a clamp. I was surprised to see that the shopping aisle was filled with lower priced palm sanders and only one orbital. I felt like they were orbital wannabees.
One of the first things I noticed about the orbital was that it is small & lightweight. This comes in handy after a long period of use—especially when sanding walls or ceilings. Even though it has a small size, it does not have a small amount of power. It was often hard to convince myself that the orbital was working fine all on its own. In the beginning, I had a tendency to push down on the machine to “help” the machine. I quickly learned that this had an adverse effect on my project & had to remind myself to NOT press down on the sander while I was using it. By doing this, the sander actually doesn’t work as well because it is prevented from moving. It can cause the machine to overwork—and not really do any sanding at all.
Since I first purchased it, I have used it for the master bedroom, to smooth out plaster walls in a second bedroom, to sand a ceiling that had once held a drop ceiling, to redo a wooden mantel and to redo kitchen cabinets.
PROBLEMS WITH THE DUST BAG
One of the major problems with working on my home is that I live here while I work. It is important to be able to sand in the bedroom without contaminating the living room. The DeWalt claimed to have a “ high capacity dust bag with vacuum adapter.” Yippee, I thought, “ I have a dust bag, who needs to cover the furniture.” It turns out that the “ high capacity dust bag with vacuum adapter” is a utopian view of this function. The DeWalt Heavy-Duty 5 Random Orbit Sander DW421 does come with a dust bag, but the dust bag regularly fell off (usually it would fly off at unplanned intervals & was filled with dust) of the sander. I eventually tried to hold onto the sander by the neck of the dust bag to make sure it would stay on.
The dust bag also had to be sucked out with a vacuum cleaner to truly get the dust out (I couldn’t just dump it in the trash). Unfortunately, the neck of the dust bag is too narrow for my vacuum—and the dust tends to collect around the neck of the dust bag. I think this design flaw would be an easy fix for DeWalt. I don’t know why they don’t design a rounder neck with a sturdier attachment from the sander to the vacuum cup.
COMPARING THE ORBITAL TO A PALM
My sanding career really took off when I decided to sand the kitchen cabinets. To do this, I moved my gear to a shop & used the DeWalt Random Orbit Sander. Since the project was so large, a friend loaned his DeWalt Heavy-Duty 1/4 Sheet Palm Grip Sander 411/411K DW411/DW411K. Now I had 2 sanders. The advantage of this is that when you get tired of using one, you can switch off. Also, you can do some fancy “using 2 sanders at the same time” moves. This seems to impress no one. The neat thing was that I got to use both, and I can tell you what I know. The Random Orbit Sander & the Palm Grip Sander seemed to have equal power—but the Palm Grip Sander worked better when it came to sanding paint with the grain of the wood (imagine a the sander acting as a planer). The Palm Grip Sander seemed to weigh more than the Random Orbit Sander, maybe this is the reason I sensed it worked better with the wood grain.
The Palm Grip Sander also worked very well when it came time to sand the grouted out edges of the wood. Since the Palm Grip Sander’s sandpaper wraps around the base, there is an edge that works very well on these types of corners.
The Palm Grip Sander really annoyed me when it came time to change the sandpaper. I seemed to always misalign the square paper. I also hated having to clamp down one edge first & then wrap the other around. My Random Orbit Sander had none of these problems. With the Random Orbit Sander, all I had to remember was to slap the paper to the pad without covering up the 5 vent holes (if you cover these holes, the motor can overheat).
I would buy a Palm Grip Sander if you were looking to sand a lot of corners or edges. If you are working on projects “table sized” projects. I would spend a little more for the Random Orbit Sander if you were looking to sand walls (more than one), ceilings, or other large spaces. The weight of the Random Orbit Sander is less, and the design is more conducive to holding the machine for long periods of time. Both machines had problems keeping the dust bags on.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
jktucker
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Location: MD
Reviews written: 13
Trusted by: 1 member
About Me:
Only 15 words to come up with a short biography?.
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