Sanders for the Woodworking Dummy

Palm sander

We had so much fun a couple of days giving the metaphorical finger to some idiot on the website Ezine that we decided to come back and do it again (not to mention that we're running a little short on time this morning). Whatever the case, our staffers took a quick look at articles about tools and immediately turned up a lot of rubbish slapped together by EzineArticles.com "expert" Sarahbeth Kluzinski back in the pre-Panda era. Let's have a look at "What is the Difference Between a Palm Sheet Sander and a Random Orbital Sander?"

We were immediately taken aback by Sarahbeth's opening statement:

"Sanding by hand is not an expired method in today's woodworking world."

What on earth does that "expired" mean? Is it a clue that Kluzinski's native language is Polish? No, her Google+ page says she's a native Hoosier (note to the Indiana Legislature: concentrate more on education and less on voter fraud). Whatever the case, Sarahbeth is here to explain the difference between two kinds of power tools, so let's see what she has to say... On the topic of random orbital sanders, Kluzinski seems to be confused, given that she says,

"Over the past decade, orbital sanders have gained a substantial amount of popularity in the carpentry and woodworking industry... Its random orbital pattern eliminates visible sanding marks as well, resulting in more even-looking finishes... Random orbital sanders operate by using round sanding discs that attach to the base of the sander with either a hook and loop fastener or some sort of adhesive. This feature is considered one of the downsides to using orbital handheld sanders."

We found ourselves confused by the way in which Sarahbeth went back and forth between "orbital" and "random orbital," so we decided to go to someone a bit more authoritative, "Popular Mechanics" magazine: they told us, "It's easy to confuse a random-orbit sander with an orbital sander: The two names sound alike, and the tools share a common design, compact housings with rounded palm-grip tops. However, there's one small but very important distinction between the two tools: An orbital sander has a square sanding pad, and a random-orbit sander has a round pad."

It certainly looks like Kluzinski found it "easy to confuse" the two types... but let's look at what she says about palm sheet sanders:

"The smaller cousins to big sheet sanders, palm sanders are handheld power tools have been around for quite some time. They are a smaller, less expensive version of a power sander that uses larger sheets of sandpaper. Palm sheet sanders use quarter sheet squares of sandpaper that can be bought at any local hardware store. They attach to the base of the sander with clamps, and a motor moves the sanding pad around in circular motions at an accelerated speed."

We aren't certain, but didn't Sarahbeth say the same thing three times in three sentences? Not to mention the utterly ridiculous usage, "accelerated speed." She also didn't do a particularly good job of differentiating between the motion of the two types.

Sadly, Kluzinski only touched on the different motion of the two sander types and she didn't mention differences in usage at all. Combine that with her apparent laissez-faire attitude toward sentence structure and word usage with her transparent unfamiliarity with power tools and you have yourself a grade "A" candidate for Dumbass of the Day.

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