Wild ride with a Ridgid sander

[Jay Knepper]

Wanting a sander that worked faster than my PC 333, I picked up a 6" Ridgid sander yesterday, largely based on the positive comments by several SMC memebers. I stuck on a 150 grit disk and fired it up.

The first trial was with the "large" orbit size (1/4") and the sander worked great. Fast material removal, low vibration, and very easily controlled. Then I shifted to the smaller, less aggressive 1/8" orbit and things changed. The sander wanted to either sit and dig in or scoot off in any direction. It was very hard to control and created high and low spots on my test boards.

Has anyone else noticed similar behavior from this sander? I'm seriously considering returning it.

[Pete Harbin]

Nothing like that with mine Jay. I've used both orbit settings on several projects and haven't had any control problems. It even worked fine on a 4" wide mirror frame I did a while back. There may be something unbalanced internally. If you hold the sander up (no contact with any material) while running, does it feel like it wants to pull or twist in mid air?

Pete

[Jim W. White]

Haven't experienced anything like that with mine either. Not to insult, but are you sure you twisted the pad around far enough to hear it lock into place again?! I usually have to spin my with my finger manually afterwards to observe the rotation and assure I've switched modes properly. I would bring it back to HD and try out another. Sorry to hear of the frustration.

..Jim W

[Jay Knepper]

Thanks for the replies. I exchanged the original machine and the new one works better. Nonehteless there is still a tendency to skit about when the sander is set to the smaller orbit size. Smooth as silk with the larger orbit size.

[Jay Knepper]

The second sander was better, but not good enough. I'm still looking for a good 6" sander.

[Per Swenson]

How about the best 6" random orbital sander on the market?

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=17615

Per

[Alan Turner]

Jay,
I have the Metabo 6", which I think is the Rigid also. I put almost zero downward pressure on mine, without problem. I wonder if you are using too much downward pressure. Just a thought.

[Jay Knepper]

Alan,

The sander behaves badly at 1/8" orbit with no pressure (other than the sander's weight) at all. I believe that there is a slight bit more vibration with the sander held off of the workpiece.

Re: Metabo makes them: I suspect that the big box retailers sometimes get price/quality concessions from manufacturers.

Amazon sells the Metabo 6" for $40 (29%) more than the Ridgid goes for. One thing that I've learned is that there is no "magic" in pricing, especially since the internet makes pricing so transparent.

On the quality side, I bought some oak stair treads a couple of years ago at Home Depot. I recall that the supplier was Babcock. They had to be trimmed to length, and in the process I found a void abouth 1/8" x 2" in the end grain. I returned the lot to HD and bought the stair treads from Owl Lumber, a good hardwood supplier in the Chicago area. The boards from Owl had no voids, and they were much nicer looking. They were also made by Babcock.
This is just conjecture, but I'm pretty sure that you would not like the performance of the two Ridgid sanders that I tried.

[Alan Turner]

Maybe they cheapened the gears or some such thing to get the price down. That woudl not surprise me at all. I am not a HD fan. I was in one a few weeks ago, for the first time in a year, I bet. What they do to a customes is one thing, but I think they also abuse their vendors.

[Jay Knepper]

I put my money where my mouth is and bought the 6" Metabo. I'm quite happy with it.

The Metabo, however, lacks two features that the Ridgid version has. It does not come with a cloth dust bag, just the paper one. It also lacks the fixture for hooking the sander up to a shop vac. I'm not sure of the value of the cloth bag; it probably filters only larger particles. It sure would be nice to be able to replace the paper ones if need be.

[Bruce Overholt]

I also bought the 6" Rigid ROS based on the comments made here. Secondly, the fact that is made by Metabo, marked made in Germany. My sander works fine. My first use was for stock removal with the provided sanding disk. I made a 2X4 base frame for my Tool Tower cabinet. I noticed that with the courser grit sandpaper, it will bite and jump if doesn't maintain flat contact. Once I went to a finer grit sanding disk it was much easier to get the hang of it. I wonder if the main problem people are having is putting to much pressure on this sander. In fact this is the first sander I've owned that I didn't have to fight with. My 20+ year old Makita 1/4" Palm Sander is now retired and the first member of my Tool Museum, unlike other tools that I've worn out and thrown away.


Bruce