Electric Sander Recommendation?

[ste-m]

Hi there,

I'm about to start sanding down the blemishes (and filling where necessary) on the plastered (and painted) walls in our house, before re-painting them.

Can someone recommend a good electric sander please? For less than £100?

I've previously had a cheap electric sander that used to vibrate a bit, but still required lots of elbow grease to do the job. As we've got quite a lot of rooms to do, I'm hoping to get something that does all the hard work for me other than holding it over the blemishes!

Thanks for any recommendations,

Ste

[Grunff]

A random orbit sander. Pick one to suit your budget, but don't spend less than £50. They all work very well, even cheaper ones, but the better ones vibrate a lot less. Bosch or Makita would be my choice.

[The3rd Earl Of Derby]

Thought about high grade lining paper? much cheaper,less sweat and certainly easier to paint this year and next year. :-)

[dom]

I've got the Metabo, which is excellent but over your budget:

Axminster are doing a deal on the very similar Bosch which is only slightly over-budget:

[Pete C]

I've got this, which for the money is absolutely bloody superb!:

It's got a 5mm orbit which sanders of that price rarely have.

Skil are revising some of their lineup in favour of 'cheaper' and inferior models from China, so it's the last chance to get some of their decent stuff from them.

For a filler, just normal car body filler is hard to beat. Smells a bit when curing but does so fast without shrinking and is a dream to sand.

cheers, Pete.

[Mark S.]

Bosch PEX 400. :-)

Mark S.

[The Medway Handyman]

Random orbit sander & One Strike type filler.

[Andy Dingley]

Big 1/2 sheet - try and find the last of the Skil 666 sanders. 80 quid (ish) and built like a tank. I think they've stopped making them, but Screwfix still had some recently. Makita's hefty 1/2 sheet is good too.

Random orbit, you want a green Bosch BEX400 (BEX? PEX? GEX? - it's too cold to go and look!). Nice reliable machine and the nearest competition is well over =A3100

For a 1/4sheet detail sander, Ryobi do one for 20-25 quid that's more capable than most and doesn't seem to break. Paper clips could perhaps be grippier.

Buy good roll sandpaper in plenty of grades too - that's one of your biggest performance variables.

[Pete C]

Here's another one with 5mm orbit:

Was considering this before I bought the Skil I posted about.

cheers, Pete.

[ste-m]

Hi guys,

Wow, thanks for the response!

I'll go through each of the suggestions (models and types) and make my choice soon - need to get on with this as we don't want to be decorating over Christmas!

Thanks again,

Ste

[ste-m]

Hi there,

Just to finish off, I went for the budget Skil sander for £29.99 from Screwfix. I've used it on Sunday afternoon and it works fine so I'm quite pleased. If I had to be picky, then there are times when I think a bit of extra wattage wouldn't go amiss (it's 310w, where some of the other models recommended were 400w), but it's hardly noticable other than on rough pieces of sanding.

Thanks,

Ste

[Piers James]

Thanks to this thread I bought the Bosch PEX 400 AE and am extremely pleased with it. Particularly the lack of dust due it's very effective integral suction and collection.

[Andy Dingley]

Recent Skil ? I'd rather have a B&D....