review, rating + tips on how to choose a grinder

Sand­pa­per has been known to all of us since school days, so you per­fect­ly under­stand how dif­fi­cult it is to endure the process of grind­ing mate­r­i­al. This is such a tedious monot­o­nous task that it is hard to endure, so anoth­er solu­tion appeared — grinders. They dif­fer in a vari­ety of cri­te­ria. Among them, you can find both two-hand­ed “grinders”, and more com­pact options — engravers with noz­zles, although every­one prefers their “dremels”.

We have com­piled a rat­ing of grinders with which you can solve the issue of both more com­plex and sim­pler tasks. The main thing is to pay atten­tion to the fea­tures of a par­tic­u­lar mod­el.

The best grinders

Rating of the best grinders

What grinder do you use or would you rec­om­mend to oth­er users?

Take a sur­vey

№1 — Makita BO3711

The hon­or­able first place in the top is deserved­ly occu­pied by a vibra­to­ry grinder from the pro­fes­sion­al cat­e­go­ry. An improved sand­pa­per clip allows you to deft­ly and quick­ly change con­sum­ables, the per­for­mance of this device is beyond praise — Japan­ese qual­i­ty speaks for itself. Vibra­tion modes vary over a wide range from 8,000 to 22,000 vibra­tions, so with skill­ful tun­ing, you can pol­ish any mate­r­i­al to per­fect smooth­ness. Maki­ta sup­ports the con­nec­tion of a vac­u­um clean­er, but most like­ly this will not be need­ed — a mod­ern dust suc­tion sys­tem does not allow pro­duc­tion waste to scat­ter in dif­fer­ent direc­tions, col­lect­ing small par­ti­cles even direct­ly from the work­ing plate, and the capac­i­ty of the dust col­lec­tor is enough for sev­er­al hours of inten­sive work. The case is made of impact-resis­tant plas­tic, par­tial­ly rub­ber­ized, the com­fort­able han­dle does not cre­ate incon­ve­nience even dur­ing indus­tri­al use, and an effec­tive vibra­tion damp­ing mech­a­nism will save you from hav­ing to exert extra effort for work. The machine weighs only 1.6 kg, the engine is not as pow­er­ful as it might seem — 190 W, but the ver­i­fied ergonom­ics allow you to use its pow­er to its fullest.

Maki­ta BO3711

The best eccentric sanders

No. 5. Makita BO5041K

The Maki­ta BO5041K grinder looks quite pre­sentable at its prices. Yes, the motor is rather weak (300 W, which is not enough), there is a small plat­form trav­el (up to 3 mm max­i­mum), and in gen­er­al, only one 125 mm plat­form is includ­ed in the kit.

What can be coun­tered by these short­com­ings? First, the light weight of the device. The light­ness of this Maki­ta mod­el allows you to do work on weight, which oth­er com­peti­tors’ devices can­not boast of.

The ergonom­ics are good, there is a good vibra­tion pro­tec­tion, a con­ve­nient loca­tion for the rota­tion set­tings, an installed side han­dle for greater ease of oper­a­tion.

Let’s move on to the main dis­ad­van­tage. It con­sists in the need to work with a vac­u­um clean­er due to the poor loca­tion of the fil­ter. In addi­tion, it is worth not­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of loos­en­ing the plat­form mounts. How­ev­er, giv­en the low cost com­pared to oth­er com­peti­tors, these prob­lems can be over­looked.

pros

1. Few vibra­tions.
2. Com­fort­able to grip the han­dles.
3. Small price.

Minus­es

1. A vac­u­um clean­er is required to remove dust.

Maki­ta BO5041K

No. 4. Metabo SXE 425 TurboTec

Metabo is a fair­ly well-known com­pa­ny, also due to their inter­est­ing design solu­tions. The exam­ple of this mod­el shows that the design­ers tried to com­bine all the best in it — a 320 W motor, an eccen­tric and var­i­ous elec­tron­ics, mak­ing the device a rather remark­able choice.

By the way, about elec­tron­ics. This tool has many func­tions that expand the scope of work with it. For exam­ple Tur­bo Boost. The name itself makes it clear what the essence of this func­tion is. It acti­vates all the reserves hid­den in the engine to increase the pow­er of the device. She has a sep­a­rate but­ton locat­ed at the base of the han­dle, which made it impos­si­ble to put speed con­trollers there. They them­selves are locat­ed on the head of the appa­ra­tus.

Impor­tant! When Tur­bo­Boost is acti­vat­ed, the speed con­trollers are dis­abled.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly Metabo does­n’t have the best build qual­i­ty of late. This mod­el, for exam­ple, may vibrate the han­dle. It also hap­pens that the speed con­trollers stop work­ing, and the wires are the rea­son for this.

Sur­pris­ing­ly, the price of this mod­el is quite high, and it does not belong to the pro­fes­sion­al seg­ment, so only a long war­ran­ty can be the last rea­son to take this device, although it is not so bad in real­i­ty.

pros

1. A good option for rough work.
2. Ease of use.
3. Avail­abil­i­ty

Minus­es

1. Some build qual­i­ty issues.
2. High price for an ama­teur-lev­el device.

Metabo SXE 425 Tur­boTec

Number 3. DeWALT DWE6423

This mod­el is a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the well-known com­pa­ny DeWALT, which lacks stars from the sky. It is func­tion­al enough for an ama­teur lev­el, but still there are a cou­ple of points that are worth pay­ing atten­tion to.

First­ly, it has an aver­age pow­er engine (280 W). Sec­ond­ly, small ampli­tude (2.4 mm). Third­ly, dimen­sions and weight. The device is quite light and com­pact.

Ease of oper­a­tion due to speed con­trol (although the reg­u­la­tor itself was not placed in a very con­ve­nient place) and elec­tron­ic sta­bi­liza­tion allows you to work with the mate­r­i­al with­out any prob­lems. How­ev­er, there is one “but” — there is no side han­dle, which means that you will have to hold the device by its head.

Dust extrac­tion works well, but you should also add a vac­u­um clean­er there. As we already men­tioned, it is bet­ter to use it as an ama­teur rather than a pro­fes­sion­al device due to its rapid wear.

pros

1. The tool gen­er­ates lit­tle vibra­tion.
2. The grip points are cov­ered with rub­ber.
3. Adjust­ment of turns and their sta­bi­liza­tion increase con­ve­nience of work.
4. A good option for fin­ish­ing.

Minus­es

1. The absence of a side han­dle reduces the con­ve­nience of work­ing with the device.
2. Rapid wear of machine com­po­nents.

Reviews of the DeWALT DWE6423 grinder

No. 2. BOSCH GEX 125–150 AVE

The most expen­sive eccen­tric sander from the Ger­man com­pa­ny Bosch, which is quite a bit infe­ri­or to the pre­vi­ous mod­el.

In terms of ergonom­ics, Bosch is more pleas­ant than DeWALT. This is due to the stream­lin­ing of the forms, the pres­ence of over­lays to pro­tect against vibra­tions. How­ev­er, the speed con­trol of the Bosch mod­el is not as large as com­pared to the DeWALT. Here the firm-oppo­nent will be ahead.

The machine is heavy, but because of the weight it will not go to the side, which means that you can not be afraid for the qual­i­ty of work. In addi­tion, there is no need for strong clamp­ing of the device.

A 400 W motor, the abil­i­ty to increase the speed to 12 thou­sand rpm, two plates in the kit (for 125 and 150 mm) — all this makes it clear about the reli­a­bil­i­ty and qual­i­ty of this mod­el.

This mod­el from Bosch is our favorite of all eccen­tric sand­ing pads for both con­ve­nience and qual­i­ty work.

pros

1. Best vibra­tion pro­tec­tion.
2. The ergonom­ics are quite good.
3. Two “plates” are includ­ed.

Minus­es

1. High price.

BOSCH GEX 125–150 AVE

No. 1. DeWALT D26410

Anoth­er rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the com­pa­ny DeWALT, which takes the “sil­ver” part of the price. Inter­est­ing­ly, this mod­el ful­ly jus­ti­fies the price-qual­i­ty ratio.

In its body you will see a cir­cle for rough work with a diam­e­ter of 150 mm, the abil­i­ty to increase the ampli­tude val­ue to 6 mm, a 400 W motor, a large weight due to which the device will not fly out of your hands and the abil­i­ty to work with both rough pro­cess­ing and fin­ish­ing.

This appa­ra­tus has an extreme­ly large num­ber of oscil­la­tion fre­quen­cies and rota­tion speeds, and the num­ber of mate­ri­als with which it can work is dif­fi­cult to count. This list includes con­crete, plas­tic, and many oth­er mate­ri­als.

With dust removal, this machine is doing well — the fil­ter bag allows you to col­lect all the dust with­out spread­ing it every­where. And due to the seal­ing, the tool itself will not suf­fer from dust.

A fly in the oint­ment in choos­ing this mod­el was the mech­a­nism respon­si­ble for chang­ing the course of the sole. You need to per­form a bunch of actions before the device does what you need. This is not very good for those who want to take this mod­el for both home and pro­fes­sion­al work.

pros

1. High lev­el of per­for­mance.
2. Not too strong vibra­tions when work­ing with this grinder.
3. Com­fort­able enough to work.
4. Two modes of oper­a­tion: rough and fin­ish­ing.

Minus­es

1. Switch­ing the ampli­tude of oscil­la­tions is more dif­fi­cult than … (think up your­self, every­thing will work here).
2. The sole is too hard.

DeWALT D26410

BOSCH PSM 200 AES

Main char­ac­ter­is­tics:

• Pow­er — 200 W
• Plat­form stroke size — 1.8 mm
• Oscil­la­tion fre­quen­cy — up to 26000 count / rev
• Sand­ing sheet fas­ten­ing — Vel­cro
• Weight — 1.4 kg

Body and ergonom­ics. The mod­el has a plas­tic case with a long han­dle for hold­ing with one or two hands from either side. The han­dle is pro­vid­ed with ribbed rub­ber pads and an end stop against slip­ping. The tool weight of 1.4 kg is suit­able for free­hand work.

Design fea­tures. This grinder is dif­fer­ent in that it can be used with a tri­an­gu­lar or rec­tan­gu­lar sole.

Tri­an­gu­lar out­sole.

The tri­an­gu­lar blade is well suit­ed for thor­ough sand­ing of hard to reach areas, while the rec­tan­gu­lar blade is well suit­ed for sand­ing large areas.

Rec­tan­gu­lar out­sole.

The fas­ten­ing of the abra­sive is car­ried out with Vel­cro. A small con­tain­er with a micro­fil­ter to col­lect dust is installed on the back side.

Func­tion­al­i­ty and fea­tures. The elec­tric motor of the machine devel­ops a pow­er of 200 watts. With an oscil­la­tion ampli­tude of 1.8 mm, the fre­quen­cy is adjustable in the range from 3 to 13 thou­sand cycles per minute, which allows you to best adapt to the prop­er­ties of the mate­r­i­al being processed. The con­trols are locat­ed on the han­dle under the oper­a­tor’s thumb.

Equip­ment. The tool is sold with a plas­tic case, an attached rec­tan­gu­lar plat­form and a pair of P80 class sand­ing sheets.

Advan­tages of BOSCH PSM 200 AES

1. Reli­able con­struc­tion.
2. Two types of plat­forms.
3. Light weight.
4. High per­for­mance.
5. The wide fre­quen­cy con­trol range starts from low speed, which is suit­able for del­i­cate mate­ri­als and pre­cise work.
6. Com­fort­able han­dle.

Cons of BOSCH PSM 200 AES

1. Fas­ten­ing sand­ing sheets only with Vel­cro.
2. Expen­sive con­sum­ables.

The best vibratory grinders

No. 5. Metabo SRE 3185

This mod­el is quite light and com­pact, which allows you to work with it any­where. It has a 210 W elec­tric motor, a small plat­form (in fact, this is nat­ur­al for a small mod­el), two types of fas­ten­ers — Vel­cro and clips, a fre­quen­cy of 22,000 rpm, and an ampli­tude of 2 mm. In gen­er­al, this device embod­ies every­thing that is need­ed for rough­ing or final pro­cess­ing.

Despite its small size, the machine is com­fort­able to hold in your hands. We owe this to the design­ers who decid­ed to place a full-fledged rear han­dle. In addi­tion, they also tried to install vibra­tion pro­tec­tion, which ful­ly jus­ti­fies itself.

But what is not very good is with a fil­ter bag. It is bet­ter to just pull it out and con­nect the vac­u­um clean­er — this way there will be less trou­ble and more results.

pros

1. Small dimen­sions and weight.
2. High RPM.
3. Rear han­dle avail­able.
4. Build qual­i­ty.
5. Good vibra­tion pro­tec­tion.

Minus­es

1. Low pow­er.
2. Bad fil­ter bag.

Metabo SRE 3185

No. 4. BOSCH GSS 230AE

A 300 W grinder, assem­bled in Switzer­land, with a fair­ly com­pact plat­form on which sheets are attached with Vel­cro or clips — that’s what you can under­stand when you see this mod­el. Its ampli­tude is 2.4 mm at a fre­quen­cy of 22,000 rpm. This is more than enough to get the job done right.

The pres­ence of vibra­tion pro­tec­tion is also a plus. While work­ing with this mod­el, she does not go any­where to the side, all the time in her hands. The grip sys­tem is well thought out — it is locat­ed so that it is con­ve­nient for both right-hand­ed and left-hand­ed peo­ple to grab the han­dle.

The only thing that does not please is too poor a com­plete set.

pros

1. Extreme­ly pro­duc­tive machine.
2. Good vibra­tion pro­tec­tion.
3. Com­fort­able grip.
4. Qual­i­ty build.

Minus­es

1. Min­i­mum equip­ment.

BOSCH GSS 230AE

Number 3. DeWALT DWE6411

DeWALT has its own com­pact ver­sion of the grinder — DWE6411. The first thing to note is the almost square shape of the plat­form. The fre­quen­cy of this mod­el, of course, is less than that of oth­ers — only 14000 rpm, as well as the ampli­tude — 1.6 mm. But the engine pleas­es. Let not the pow­er, which is less than the full-size ver­sion of the same com­pa­ny — this mod­el has only 230 watts. It pleas­es with its high sta­bil­i­ty.

There are two fas­ten­ers at the plat­form — Vel­cro and clips. There is also a plate for per­fo­rat­ing cut sheets, which is nice.

The design of the grinder is sim­ple, but it is worth not­ing the absence of a speed con­troller and a rear han­dle. You also need to pay atten­tion to the price — this mod­el is quite afford­able, in prin­ci­ple, any­one can afford to buy it.

pros

1. Small sizes.
2. Eas­i­ly grinds small parts.
3. Not too noisy.
4. Vibra­tions are bear­able.
5. Afford­able price.

Minus­es

1. Low motor pow­er.
2. There is no rear han­dle.
3. Turnover can­not be adjust­ed.

Reviews about the grinder DeWALT DWE6411

No. 2. AEG FS 280

AEG FS 280 is an inter­est­ing mod­el because it sits between pro­fes­sion­al and ama­teur devices. With a pow­er of 440 W, a fair­ly large plat­form, an ampli­tude of 2.5 mm — all this can be found in this grinder. In it, you need to care­ful­ly mon­i­tor only two things: the plat­form itself and the clamps. Oth­er­wise, every­thing is fine, every­thing is reli­able.

The price of the device is quite afford­able, it can be ordered by any­one who wants to work at home. True, you need to get used to the fre­quent vibra­tions that the rear han­dle will help to cope with.

The main dis­ad­van­tage of this mod­el is not so much the lack of vel­cro, but the fast-wear­ing clips.

pros

1. Pow­er­ful motor.
2. Vibra­tion pro­tec­tion at the prop­er lev­el.
3. Afford­able price.
4. Rear han­dle for added sta­bil­i­ty.

Minus­es

1. Fas­ten­ing only on clamps that wear out over time.

AEG FS 280

No. 1. Makita 9046

A Male­vich-style box is not what you would expect from a sander pack­ag­ing, so Maki­ta man­aged to sur­prise.

Inside is a fair­ly pro­duc­tive device with a capac­i­ty of 600 watts. Its ampli­tude is 5 mm, which is well suit­ed for ini­tial, rough pro­cess­ing, but not for the final one.

In terms of ergonom­ics, every­thing about this mod­el is good — it is equal­ly com­fort­able for every­one who inter­act­ed with it.

Its alu­minum plat­form is large enough in length, which is con­ve­nient for work. Dou­ble fas­ten­ing — Vel­cro and clips.

What is poor­ly imple­ment­ed in this mod­el is the removal of dust. Despite the pres­ence of a large bag, it is incon­ve­nient to clean it. Oth­er­wise, the device is quite good.

pros

1. High pow­er.
2. Large ampli­tude.
3. Con­ve­nient grip sys­tem.
4. Large plat­form size.

Minus­es

1. The bag clogs quick­ly and is incon­ve­nient to clean.

Maki­ta 9046

You might be inter­est­ed in learn­ing about the best cord­less screw­drivers. You can read about them here!

No. 2 — Fiolent MPSH4-28E

Anoth­er domes­tic-made tool with a pow­er of 600W. The oscil­la­tion fre­quen­cy of the sole is reg­u­lat­ed by a tog­gle switch with­in the range of 0–6000 rpm, with such pow­er it is pos­si­ble to suc­cess­ful­ly per­form both pri­ma­ry pro­cess­ing of rough sur­faces and sec­ondary fin­ish­ing pol­ish­ing. The gear­box hous­ing is made of alu­minum alloy, which guar­an­tees a long ser­vice life of the device. Com­plete with the machine, in addi­tion to a capa­cious dust col­lec­tor, an addi­tion­al abra­sive sheet, a noz­zle and two lin­ings are pro­vid­ed.

The high price is due to the super-pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and excel­lent qual­i­ty of the con­stituent com­po­nents of the appa­ra­tus. Any type of sand­ing paper gets on the sole, the device works in any con­di­tions and with any mate­r­i­al, a rub­ber­ized remov­able han­dle is pro­vid­ed to sim­pli­fy oper­a­tion, so you def­i­nite­ly will not regret the mon­ey spent on this baby.

Fio­lent MPSH4-28E

The best belt sanders

No. 5. BLACK+DECKER KA88

One of the bud­get belt sanders was pre­sent­ed by BLACK + DECKER. Her mod­el KA88 has the fol­low­ing tech­ni­cal points.

1. 720W motor.
2. Extreme­ly slow, com­pared to the rest, the con­stant speed of the belt — 250 m / min.
3. Easy access to hard-to-reach places — you just need to remove the pro­tec­tive cov­er.
4. The large rear roller, and the lead­ing one, does not slip.
5. Adjust­ment of a for­ward han­dle under the spe­cif­ic user.
6. High qual­i­ty dust removal sys­tem.
7. Can­not be mount­ed upside down.

Due to the design fea­tures, it will take some time to get used to it. But in gen­er­al, the device per­forms its tasks quite well.

pros

1. Pow­er­ful motor.
2. Lit­tle noise.
3. Con­ve­nient access to parts of the device.
4. Good dust removal.
5. Belong­ing to the bud­get seg­ment.

Minus­es

1. The small­est speed of the tape, and con­stant.
2. You can not attach the device to the work­bench in an upside down posi­tion.

BLACK+DECKER KA88

No. 4. BOSCH PBS 75AE

Not only pro­fes­sion­al devices are found in belt sanders. Ama­teur vari­ants also boast sev­er­al good mod­els. One of them is BOSCH PBS 75 AE.

Today it is already quite expen­sive, but you can close your eyes to this, know­ing how good the device is. And he’s real­ly good.

The con­ve­nient loca­tion of the han­dles makes it easy to manip­u­late the machine when per­form­ing var­i­ous tasks. More impor­tant­ly, you can cen­ter the tape and secure the device up with tape on the work­bench.

Con­sid­er the tech­ni­cal spec­i­fi­ca­tions.

Cri­te­ri­on	Descrip­tion
Pow­er	750 W — this is exact­ly the pow­er of this device from Bosch.
Tape size	Tape size 533 by 75 mm. It will give a clear and sta­ble oper­a­tion of the device.
Belt speed	The max­i­mum belt speed is 350 m/min.
The weight	Aver­age weight — 3.5 kg. This weight will not quick­ly tire, which is quite good.

The only annoy­ing over­sight is that the seam of the dust bag diverges, which can cause dust to escape.

pros

1. It is con­ve­nient to take.
2. You can attach the device to a work­bench.
3. Fair­ly fast belt move­ment, although oth­er mod­els move even faster.
4. Weight allows you to work on weight.
5. Belong­ing to the bud­get seg­ment.

Minus­es

1. The seam of the dust col­lec­tor diverges and even­tu­al­ly it breaks.

Reviews of the BOSCH PBS 75 AE grinder

Number 3. Makita 9403

The most bru­tal design that will suit the harsh grinder is what a per­son imme­di­ate­ly notices when he sees the Maki­ta 9403. In addi­tion, this mod­el has sev­er­al remark­able fea­tures.

1. Tape 610x100, which is not quite stan­dard.
2. Motor pow­er — 1.2 kW, which is quite a lot.
3. The con­stant speed of the belt (500m/min) is due to the absence of a speed con­troller.
4. Large weight of the device (5.7 kg). For this rea­son, you need to be in good phys­i­cal shape, because the device will be dif­fi­cult to han­dle.
5. The noise lev­el emit­ted by the device is quite low.
6. Due to the design of the grinder, vibra­tion is reduced.

Pro­fes­sion­als who sand large hor­i­zon­tal sur­faces will love this mod­el. True, it is worth not­ing the rapid wear of graphite tapes, which will lead to their fre­quent replace­ment. And with a non-stan­dard size of tapes, this will be more dif­fi­cult than usu­al.

pros

1. Shus­tro works.
2. Sim­ple con­struc­tion.
3. High reli­a­bil­i­ty and build qual­i­ty.
4. Pow­er­ful motor.
5. Small noise.
6. Reduced vibra­tion due to design.

Minus­es

1. There is no speed con­troller.
2. Graphite tape wears out quick­ly.
3. Large weight of the device.

Maki­ta 9403

No. 2. Makita 9404

Com­par­ing the pow­er and max­i­mum belt speed of the Maki­ta 9404 and DeWALT DWP352VS mod­els, we can safe­ly say that the first mod­el will be faster and more pro­duc­tive than the sec­ond. This can be explained by the width of the tape, which Maki­ta has more.

Anoth­er pos­i­tive effect on per­for­mance is the pres­ence of a belt posi­tion sta­bi­liza­tion sys­tem.

As a rule, peo­ple do not com­plain about Maki­ta prod­ucts, but this mod­el still has one draw­back — it wears out the graphite sole too quick­ly. It’s too bad for a pro­fes­sion­al machine.

pros

1. High lev­el of per­for­mance.
2. Tape posi­tion sta­bi­liza­tion sys­tem.
3. The strength is quite high.
4. Reli­able and high-qual­i­ty assem­bly.
5. Nor­mal price.

Minus­es

1. Slight­ly non-stan­dard tape size.
2. The graphite tape wears out too quick­ly.

Maki­ta 9404

No. 1. DeWALT DWP352VS

This mod­el from the DeWALT com­pa­ny has its own inter­est­ing fea­tures that make this tool real­ly desir­able. Let’s con­sid­er them in more detail.

1. The size of the tape is stan­dard (533 by 75 mm), which allows you to replace it if nec­es­sary with­out any prob­lems.
2. Motor pow­er — 1 kW, which is more than enough for rough and fin­ish pro­cess­ing.
3. A large bag that col­lects all the dust.
4. The large weight of the device is 5.5 kg, which makes it dif­fi­cult to work with small parts, because you have to work on weight, and your hands get tired from heav­i­ness.
5. The belt speed can be adjust­ed. The max­i­mum pos­si­ble speed on this device is 440 meters per minute.
6. There are no rub­ber pads, which means that vibra­tion will be felt more strong­ly.

This unit is an excel­lent choice for those who have to work with hor­i­zon­tal sur­faces “above the roof”.

pros

1. Eas­i­ly replace­able tape for­mat.
2. The dust­bin is quite large.
3. Rapid move­ment of the tape dur­ing oper­a­tion of the device.
4. Extreme­ly pow­er­ful motor.

Minus­es

1. The dust col­lec­tor is in an awk­ward posi­tion.
2. There are no rub­ber pads because of which the vibra­tion is felt more strong­ly.

DeWALT DWP352VS

You might be inter­est­ed to know about the best con­struc­tion vac­u­um clean­ers. You can read about them in this arti­cle!

#6 — Black&Decker DuoSand KA330E

A rather bulky vibrat­ing grinder from an Amer­i­can brand. One gets the impres­sion that this mon­ster will cope with any sur­faces, but this assump­tion will turn out to be far from real­i­ty — the small pow­er of the device is only enough to process wood, for rough planes it is bet­ter to choose some­thing more pow­er­ful. The dust col­lec­tor com­part­ment is made of trans­par­ent plas­tic, mak­ing it easy to con­trol its fill­ing. The dust col­lec­tion part is eas­i­ly detached from the main struc­ture, so there will be no prob­lems with clean­ing it. Although the motor here con­sumes as much as 270 watts, part of its pow­er is used by the dust col­lec­tion pump, and the remain­ing pow­er is enough to spin the work­ing head from 5000 to 13000 rpm. The man­u­fac­tur­er offers a 2‑year war­ran­ty for this device, which indi­rect­ly indi­cates its qual­i­ty and reli­a­bil­i­ty.

Black&Decker Duosand KA330E

Which grinder is better to choose?

All three vari­eties have cer­tain advan­tages and dis­ad­van­tages. And they must be con­sid­ered when choos­ing a future grind­ing machine.

1. When work­ing with large sur­faces or you need to sharp­en tools, and quite quick­ly, it is bet­ter to choose a tape option. After all, as we have already said, you can not only grind, but also sharp­en, and only belt grinders can do this well. How­ev­er, it must be tak­en into account that this option requires a lot: the cor­rect loca­tion of the tool, the abil­i­ty to use this type of grinder. What can scare away is a com­plex design that is prob­lem­at­ic to repair, a belt dri­ve and the search for the most suit­able replace­ment belts.

   

   
   Belt grinders are the most ver­sa­tile options, albeit dif­fi­cult to mas­ter.
2. For sim­ple sand­ing of wood and per­fo­ra­tion of sheets, it is bet­ter to use vibra­tion options. The shape of their sole can be made for reg­u­lar or angled work. Com­pared to belt vibrat­ing ones, they are eas­i­er to repair, and they are only slight­ly infe­ri­or in per­for­mance. What pleas­es — many vibra­tion mod­els have devices that help with per­fo­ra­tion.

   

   
   If you need some­thing in between ver­sa­til­i­ty and afford­abil­i­ty, then it is bet­ter to take vibra­to­ry grinders.
3. Don’t work with wood? Then it is bet­ter to take eccen­tric options. They are a lit­tle more com­pli­cat­ed than vibrat­ing ones, but they are eas­i­er to care for and eas­i­er to work with bends. For exam­ple, in any car ser­vice you will find just this type of grinder.

Eccen­tric options — the sim­plest, but rather nar­row­ly focused, which is not very good for those who are look­ing for a uni­ver­sal tool
Con­sid­er­ing many dif­fer­ent cri­te­ria, from pow­er to noise and vibra­tion lev­els, you will choose exact­ly the grinder that will eas­i­ly per­form your tasks and will not cre­ate prob­lems.

Sta­tis­tics — most pop­u­lar grinder man­u­fac­tur­ers

Anoth­er thing to con­sid­er when choos­ing is clean­ing the tool from dust. If it is imple­ment­ed cor­rect­ly, then the care of the device will be sim­ple and easy, which will only add more joy when work­ing with it.

No. 7 — Einhell TE-OS 2520 E

Very pop­u­lar and skill­ful­ly arranged mod­el, the guar­an­tor of Ger­man qual­i­ty. The deliv­ery set includes a case made of impact-resis­tant plas­tic, the body of the machine is made of the same mate­r­i­al. Detailed instruc­tions in sev­er­al lan­guages ​​clear­ly describe all the char­ac­ter­is­tics and explain how to prop­er­ly use this mir­a­cle of tech­nol­o­gy. The device weighs almost 2 kilo­grams, it can be con­nect­ed to a vac­u­um clean­er, the abra­sive com­po­nent is attached to a clip or Vel­cro. The design has spe­cial shock absorbers that con­fi­dent­ly damp­en unnec­es­sary vibra­tions, and the oscil­la­tion fre­quen­cy of the sole is reg­u­lat­ed by a spe­cial switch in the range from 14,000 to 24,000 rpm. The 250 W motor is enough not only for work­ing on wood and plas­tic, but also for met­al sur­faces. The man­u­fac­tur­er gives a 2‑year war­ran­ty for this device, and you can find con­sum­ables in almost any store

Ein­hell TE-OS 2520 E

Poll: best grinder

What grinder do you use or would you rec­om­mend to oth­er users?

DeWALT D26410

0.00% ( 0 )

BOSCH GEX 125–150 AVE

25.00% ( 1 )

DeWALT DWE6423

25.00% ( 1 )

Metabo SXE 425 TurboTec

0.00% ( 0 )

Makita BO5041K

0.00% ( 0 )

Makita 9046

0.00% ( 0 )

AEG FS 280

0.00% ( 0 )

DeWALT DWE6411

0.00% ( 0 )

BOSCH GSS 230AE

0.00% ( 0 )

Metabo SRE 3185

0.00% ( 0 )

DeWALT DWP352VS

0.00% ( 0 )

Makita 9404

25.00% ( 1 )

Makita 9403

0.00% ( 0 )

BOSCH PBS 75AE

0.00% ( 0 )

Purpose

A vibrat­ing grinder is a tool that is used to lev­el any dry sur­faces.
Areas of appli­ca­tion of the device:

• For pro­cess­ing wood­en sur­faces.
• Inter­nal fin­ish­ing works.
• Body work dur­ing the repair of vehi­cles.

The tool can be used to process the fol­low­ing types of sur­faces:

• Met­al.
• Wood.
• poly­mer­ic mate­ri­als.
• Stone of nat­ur­al and arti­fi­cial ori­gin.
• Gyp­sum.
• Plas­ter.

Expert opin­ion

Levin Dmit­ry Kon­stan­ti­novich

The device is used in order to get rid of uneven sur­faces, get rid of rust and old paint­work.

General Features

• Most mod­ern grinders are equipped with a dust removal sys­tem: a con­struc­tion vac­u­um clean­er is con­nect­ed through a spe­cial noz­zle or a dust col­lec­tion bag is includ­ed. This makes the work process clean­er, the tool itself is bet­ter con­trolled, and the con­sump­tion of abra­sive equip­ment is reduced.
• Accord­ing to the type of pow­er sup­ply, the machines are divid­ed into mains and bat­tery. The advan­tages and dis­ad­van­tages of cord­less grinders are obvi­ous — mobil­i­ty and inde­pen­dence from the mains, but the oper­at­ing time is lim­it­ed by the bat­tery charge.

Correct use

High-qual­i­ty pol­ish­ing and grind­ing of the vehi­cle can be car­ried out by fol­low­ing these rec­om­men­da­tions:

• divide the sur­face into sev­er­al sec­tions and treat each of them in turn — this will pre­vent the abra­sive or pol­ish­ing from dry­ing out;
• at the begin­ning of work, the speed should be min­i­mal, and after the abra­sive is dis­trib­uted over the sur­face, it is nec­es­sary to turn on increased speed;
• in the process of work, it is nec­es­sary to peri­od­i­cal­ly turn off the grind­ing machine — this will allow the car body to cool and pre­vent it from over­heat­ing;
• when pro­cess­ing the body, it is nec­es­sary to mon­i­tor the uni­for­mi­ty of pres­sure on the sole area, and the move­ments must be smooth;
• in the process of manip­u­la­tion, the grind­ing wheels are peri­od­i­cal­ly cleaned with a brush;
• If an unchar­ac­ter­is­tic sound occurs dur­ing the oper­a­tion of the tool, it is nec­es­sary to thor­ough­ly check it, clean it and lubri­cate it.

Despite the fact that the grinder speeds up and facil­i­tates the repair work, its use still requires accu­ra­cy and care, because in case of improp­er use of the tool, it may be nec­es­sary to com­plete­ly replace the car’s paint­work.

Delta orbital sanders

A fea­ture of this tool is a com­pact light­weight body — the weight of the tool is up to 1 kg; the sand­ing sole is delta-shaped, because of which these machines are called “iron”. Motor pow­er up to 300 W. Grind­ing in hard-to-reach places is car­ried out due to the fact that the tri­an­gu­lar sole makes quick vibra­tions with a small ampli­tude. Equip­ment (sand­ing sheets) for this tool is not sold every­where and is more expen­sive than paper-based sand­ing belts or grind­ing wheels.

With the help of a delta-shaped grinder, fine grind­ing of pro­tru­sions, dead cor­ners, edges, pro­files, clean­ing of pro­trud­ing glue, pro­cess­ing of objects with small details and com­plex sur­faces is per­formed.

Delta orbital sander — espe­cial­ly good in car­pen­try, fur­ni­ture mak­ing, stairs, auto­mo­tive body work, used as a main tool, and in addi­tion to eccen­tric or orbital sanders.

What are these devices?

Hand grinders are com­pact and light­weight ana­logues of indus­tri­al designs. All of them per­form sur­face treat­ment with abra­sive mate­r­i­al — sand­pa­per. There are dif­fer­ent ways to use this mate­r­i­al, and for each of them, the appro­pri­ate tools are made.

They have a dif­fer­ent design, designed to per­form spe­cif­ic tasks:

Grinder Application

Vibra­to­ry grinder — the device is mul­ti­func­tion­al and is use­ful for a vari­ety of jobs:

1. Wood­work­ing. Rough and fine clean­ing of wood intend­ed for con­struc­tion and dec­o­ra­tion.
2. Met­al­work­ing. Clean­ing of welds, traces of cor­ro­sion, rust and sim­i­lar defects.
3. Wall pro­cess­ing. Clean­ing of old paint, var­nish, lev­el­ing of the plas­tered sur­face.

The scope of appli­ca­tion direct­ly depends on the shape of the plate of the machine. For exam­ple, a large rec­tan­gu­lar plat­form is designed for pro­cess­ing large sur­faces, such as walls after plas­ter­ing or strip­ping. A square plate is con­ve­nient for work­ing on small sur­faces, the most ver­sa­tile. The tri­an­gu­lar plat­form, also called a delta grinder, is designed for pro­cess­ing nar­row, non-stan­dard, hard-to-reach areas.

Types, classification

There are dif­fer­ent designs of grind­ing machines. They are used for pro­cess­ing not only wood, but also oth­er mate­ri­als. Let’s take a clos­er look at them:

Belt sanders (LShM)

The pro­to­type of such struc­tures is the sta­tion­ary SHLPS machine, the work­ing body of which is a large loop of emery tape. The hand tool is much more com­pact, but works on the same prin­ci­ple. It has two drums — dri­ve and ten­sion, on which ready-made loops are installed.

They are com­mer­cial­ly avail­able and are designed to be used on appro­pri­ate­ly sized instru­ments. In addi­tion, man­u­al glu­ing of loops from rolled sand­pa­per is pos­si­ble, which is cheap­er and is often used by crafts­men to save mon­ey, as well as to obtain the desired result.

A lot of grind­ing dust is col­lect­ed either in a spe­cial dust col­lec­tor or removed with an indus­tri­al vac­u­um clean­er con­nect­ed to the cor­re­spond­ing noz­zle on the back of the tool body.

The main mode of oper­a­tion is man­u­al, but most tools can be installed in spe­cial stands. They allow you to elim­i­nate the for­ma­tion of bumps or dents, lim­it­ing the feed of the tape on the work­piece in a per­pen­dic­u­lar plane. There are also devices like clamps that hold the tool in a fixed posi­tion. LSM, installed in such a latch, becomes like a sta­tion­ary machine and allows you to process small parts, hold­ing them in your hands or rely­ing on spe­cial stands.

Vibrating (surface grinding) machines

The prin­ci­ple of oper­a­tion of such a tool is to move a flat sole (or plat­form), which makes small cir­cu­lar move­ments. It does not rotate around its axis, mov­ing with the help of an eccen­tric. The vibra­tion is small (usu­al­ly about 2 mm), but this is quite enough for pro­cess­ing wood­en (or oth­er) sur­faces.