Tips for Using a Random Orbit Sander

A random orbit sander is really a great way to do sanding on your wood working projects, but like any tool there's a right way and there's a wrong way to use them. So, first of, let's talk about the random orbit portion of this so you understand what's about to happen here. What will happen when I run this, is that that pad is gonna kinda jitterbug around in an oval type motion and its gonna spin. So I think its important to understand how they work so that you understand how to use them. One thing that I wanna do, is make sure that I'm removing material at a uniform rate from the entire surface. So a great tip for that is to use a pencil and just very lightly drag a line across the surface. What's gonna happen as we sand on this, is that we'll be able to watch that pencil line come off and that's gonna show us that we're hitting everything on the surface and not missing any spots. Now, random morbid Sanders today, have really come a long way as far as onboard dust collection goes with great filtration often included with the machine. But my advice is, if you can get hooked up to a vacuum system rather than use the onboard filtration, the vacuum is gonna really do a good job of extracting that dust and carrying it away from where you're working. Better yet a tool actuated vacuum is really nice. What that means is that, when I turn this on the vacuum will come on. When I turn this off you'll hear the vacuum cycle for a little bit to clear the dust out of the line, then shut itself off. So the vacuum will run automatically with the machine. Really, really nice. The thing that we wanna do, even though this is working in that random orbit motion, is make sure that you move the sander in the same direction as the grain. So I'm always gonna go parallel to the grain of my project. So in this case, its left to right for you. The other thing I wanna do is, allow my strokes to overlap just a little bit. So as I come up this way, part of my pad is hanging off the edge of the work. As I come up on the next row, part of my pad is gonna overlap where I've already sanded. That's gonna make sure I get complete coverage of sanding on this. Now, a little bit hanging off my work is important. Let's talk about that. I wanna let less than half the pad project off the edge. And the reason for that is that if I sneak up on half a pad, its too easy for that to tip and start falling off. And that's gonna start rounding the edges. Now, in this case, it's not a huge deal because this glue up still needs to be cut to length. So these edges are gonna go away. But over here, these edges are done. And if I start sagging off this way, it's gonna round those and I don't want them to be rounded. The other thing that sometimes tempting. I've seen students do this is, they think they can make the sander work faster by leaning on it. That's not the case. Its actually gonna undo what you're trying to do. It's gonna slow it down. What we wanna do is just allow the weight of the sander to do the work. All I'm doing with my hands is holding it. The way to the sander is just what it needs to be in order to get the right down pressure on this. What happens is that if you actually lean on the machine its possible on some machines, you'll slow down the RPM. That's going to actually result in a greater number of scratch marks, mess up your surface finish. So just let the weight of the machine do the thing. Another piece of advice for you. Sometimes its tempting but you don't wanna do this. To lean the sander up on its edge. You get some spot where that blemish just doesn't quite wanna come out. So you get this up on its edge a little bit to try to concentrate weight and sanding pressure on there. It's a bad idea cause random orbit Sanders do remove material well. You're going to end up with a divot there, a low spot. You wanna keep that sanding pad nice and flat and work the whole surface together. So let's have a look on this board. I've got my pencil line scribed out on their. Dust collection's ready to go. All I need is hearing protection. Then we can see just how well this random orbit sander works. Its got variable speed on it. For the work I'm doing here, I'm gonna run that at full RPM. If I wanted to have a little bit better control, remove material more slowly, I could slow it down but for what we were doing here, I don't need to. Now notice that when I approached my work, I turned the sander on, then I came down to my work. When I finished, I lifted off my work, took my finger off the trigger and let the sander come to a stop. On that first pass I gained a lot of ground. You could see how well it was taking those pencil lines off. I'm not quite done yet. I can feel a little bit of irregularity right over these glue joints. So I'm just going to repeat the process. I'm gonna strike another line across the surface here. Go back to my sanding until that line has gone. Check it again. So I'm gonna get back to work, finish this up. As you use a random orbit sander in your shop, keep those tips in mind to make sure you're optimizing what the random orbit sander can provide for you and your wood working projects.