Official Luthiers Forum!

OK guys I'm reading a lot of books and taking a course in luthiery but there's not been any mention of powered sanders - but I'm thinking this is because the books are old and at the college I'm at we do things the old way. But I think in a lot of cases certain methods are used because the power tools were too expensive to be realistic for home use. These days you can buy almost anything as the prices have dropped so much - OK so is there a place for powered sanding? I don't mean disks or bobbins for shaping, I mean for cleaning and finishing.

Thanks

Absolutely! Just about any process you can do by hand can also be done with a power sander. If you don't have experience with a power sander use caution. Steps like final plate thicknessing and rounding over bindings etc. can have undesirable results in a hurry with a power sander if not careful.

I use several ROS's throughout my building and on occasion a finish sander. Just keep in mind that you have less feel with power sanders and like Robbie said it is easy to go too far much too quickly if your not careful

Hi Jim

You can definitely use a random orbit sander. A number of us here are using the Festool ETS-125. I like it for a number of reasons.

1) The surface it leaves is better than the surface left by my Porter Cable. The surface after using 150 feels like what my Porter Cable would leave with 220.

2) The base uses a reinforced rim, so the surface you get is nice and level. You can sand around the edges without worrying about rounding them over.

3) The dust collection, even with a bag, is second to none. With the vacuum (I have the Festool MIDI), there isn't a trace of dust in the air.

4) The paper is long lasting and less expensive than the 3M paper I'd buy at the hardware store.

And there are probably a few others I'm not thinking of

Thanks guys - seems the ETS 150 is more a here in UK - any reason not to get one - or better stick with 125? also would I want the 5mm orbit or the 3mm orbit?

Thanks again, very helpful