Orbital Sander Saga

Last week my orbital sander began “bucking”.  We had purchased the Ryobi orbital sander last year for removing brown paint from upright areas of the boa, the sander has seen less than 25 sheets of sandpaper and was still covered under its 3 year warranty, so I called the warranty 800 number for Ryobi.  I was told to take it to the nearest Home Depot tool rental center, which is about an hour drive each way.  We were told that we would need to pay an initial fee for Home Depot to inspect it, but that our fee would be refunded since it was under warranty.  We travelled to Sarasota, paid our $20 and left it for the repair guys. In the mean time, we purchased a Dewalt orbital sander online with variable speeds and a carrying case from Amazon.com.

The day the new sander arrived the Home Depot guys called, our sander was fixed they said–turns out it was a loose screw, not covered under warranty for this $29.00 sander.  I called Ryobi and when I asked the woman at the other end of the line how self-loosening screws on a sander were not covered, she told me in broken English that I must be “using it wrong.”  What?  We picked up the repaired sander along with some paint and were given a “discount” on the paint, so that the total charge on the sander was $6.00.

Still bucking.

Sanding wrong? This is not my first major boat sanding project using an orbital sander.  Oh well.  I hung up before rude comments escaped my mind and blurted out over the phone lines.

Today, was sanding day. I tried the newly repaired Ryobi sander first–yep, you guessed it, it still ” bucks.  Sigh. I am so glad I purchased the Dewalt sander–its quieter, has 6 speeds, the sandpaper stays on and the filter bag stays on as well.  I used about 12 pieces of 80 grit sandpaper on cockpit today, hopefully this new sander will hold up to the DeWalt reputation.  So far, I have invested as much in the Ryobi product as I paid for my Dewalt. Next time I think I will choose the quality tool rather than the cheap tool, especially when it is something that will get a lot of use on our boat.