High end random orbit sanders

[John Rumm]

As regular readers may know I dabble in a bit of wood work from time to time. I was toying with updating my RO sander (currently a "Green" Bosch PEX 400).

The key requirements are something that can cope with everything from aggressive removal, down to fairly fine finishing. Must be very low vibration, good dust control, highly controllable, and preferably light weight.

Contenders seem to be one of the RO sanders with the option of a "geared" or driven rotary mode like one of the Festool Rotex range, or one of the Mirka DEROS sanders.

Anyone used any / all of them and have any comments?

Any other models you would recommend?

[dennis]

I have a bosch gex125 (blue) and I think its pretty good. I don't know how well it collects dust as I always use it with a bosch vac to collect the dust.

Its sanded nearly all the walls in the house now without any sign of wear.

The previous pex (green) burnt out after a couple of walls.

[John Rumm]

Yup should have said I will always use a collector with it, so I am not too worried about its dust collection abilities on its own.

I find the PEX is a bit too tall to be comfortable to use single handed on anything other than a horizontal surface...

(to be fair I am not into sanding walls much either - probably only done it once in the last ten years)