Everybody loves sanding! Oh, wait; I was thinking of ice cream. Sorry.
Still, the analogy isn’t a bad one: If ice cream is the dessert that finishes up a good meal, sanding is the process that finishes — literally — all the combined efforts you put into a project. But, while my waistline may provide an argument against ice cream, sanding is an essential part of any project’s successful completion.
Meet the Sander Family
Sanders for woodworking come in a variety of types and sizes, including benchtop and stationary floor models, but the most useful handheld sanders boil down to four options. Not all sanders are suitable for all jobs, of course, with some better at certain tasks than others (and some disastrous if not used correctly).
1. Random orbit sanders, relative newcomers to the sanding party, have pretty much taken the lead among popular choices.
Sanders are designed to make a series of hundreds of thousands of scratches in a wood surface, each removing a tiny bit of stock. With single-action sanders like belt and traditional orbital sanders, those scratches are all the same orientation and are distractingly visible, especially under stain or clear finish.
But random orbit sanders (ROS)
