Tool Focus: Rotary Sander

The Rotex RO150 features three speeds and sanding patterns, for coarse sanding, fine sanding and polishing, which makes it perfect for the range of processes that we put our sanders through.  Essentially, all that any electrical sander does is remove material faster than you could by hand.  The main deciding factor in just how much material you remove depends on the grade of abrasive pad that you have fitted, just the same as using the appropriate grade of abrasive paper when sanding by hand.  We still use fairing boards and sanding blocks to fine tune the rails and intricate areas such as the nose and tail of each of our boards, but to achieve the high level of surface finish that we demand on the deck and bottom of each board in an achievable time scale we use an electrical sander.  By working up through the grades of abrasive pad we can quickly remove any scratches and polish the raw timber to an incredibly smooth, tactile, finish.  The other benefit is that we can plug the sander directly into our dust extraction system which makes for a much cleaner workshop – because the less sweeping up that we have to do late on a Friday evening, the better.