in today's video we're learning all about the orbital sander which will include covering some basic sanding techniques there are two types of orbital sanders on the market today the first one being the standard orbital sander which is normally classified by the size of the sanding pad and by its shape which is normally a square or rectangle there's at least few subcategories to the standard orbital sander the first being the quarter sheet orbital sander which can hold a quarter sheet of nine by eleven standard size sandpaper this gives the user the ability to get four usable pieces out of one sheet the next category is the half sheet orbital sander this holds a half sheet of sandpaper and this provides two usable pieces out of one sheet the sheets are usually attached to the sander with some sort of spring system or metal clamp that holds the paper to the sanding pad almost all orbital sanders move the sanding pad in the same way which is in a very tight orbital motion which helps to remove material faster one of the biggest downsides to the sanders its inability to remove a lot of material quickly so fortunately there's another option and in comes the random orbital sander this sander is characterized by a round sanding pad with round sanding discs that can be attached to the pad with either a pressure-sensitive adhesive or a hook and loop kind of like velcro in addition the round sanding discs have factory holes that line up with the onboard dust collection to reduce dust while sanding the random orbital sander not only moves in an orbital or ellipse motion but it spins as well giving this sander the ability to remove a lot of material quickly this design works so well because the pad is always moving in a random direction which helps to eliminate some sanding mistakes like cross-grain scratches and swirls there's more pros and cons to each of these sanders but overall I have to say that the random orbital sander is a great beginner tool regardless of what you buy all new Sanders come with some sort of dust collection bag just remember that when you're using sheets of standard sandpaper if you have to punch holes in the papers so that the dust collection system can draw the sawdust up the last thing I want to mention about dust collection is that it's always better to use hose and a vac system than using the factory bag these bags are great for small amounts of sanding but if you have to do a lot I would strongly consider using a vac we'll be talking a lot more about dust collection and air filtration on this channel so if you have questions on those topics be sure to subscribe and hit the bell notifications so you don't miss out when I post those videos let's take a few minutes now and talk about sanding progression which simply means sanding through the different levels or stages of the sandpaper grits and here's the typical sanding progression list the lower the number the more aggressive the sandpaper removes the material but the deeper the scratches the higher the number the less the sandpaper will remove but the shallower the scratches in general it's always best to progress through at least three to four sandpaper grits starting lower and working your way up ultimately it's through trial and error where you figure out your own progression for your specific tools and specific projects moving on to sanding techniques it's important to remember that while you're working with a standard orbital sander that you always sand in the direction of the grain if you're not cautious this sander will leave some really bad cross-grain scratches on the other hand the random orbital sander is much more forgiving and under normal operating conditions it produces no cross-grain scratches you want to keep both Sanders flat to the work this is especially important with a random orbital sander because if you tip it in either direction for too long it will create dips and valleys in your work in addition keeping the sander flat will also help reduce accidentally rounding over the edges if that's something you're not intending to do lastly it's important to get a good uniform sanding over the entire workpiece for example when you're using a standard orbital sander you can start on the left and work your way to the right always keeping the sanding motion with the grain and applying equal pressure with the random orbital grain direction doesn't really matter so you can start and work in any direction you want just make sure you get uniform coverage to do that some people find it helpful to take a pencil and make light marks over the entire surface what this does is allows them to bed gage complete sanding coverage by visually giving them the ability to see if and when the pencil marks are gone so listen sanding wood is a bit of an art form so you've got to be patient with it and you got to be willing to make some mistakes so that you can learn from them if you liked this video hit that thumbs up as always leave me a comment below and I'll see you guys next week you
