1/2 Sheet Sanders/Jitterbugs/Random Orbitals - What's the difference???

[Nick Sorenson]

I see a lot of people using Random Orbitals these days. I have an old Skil Electric (made by bosch) and have always thought it to be ok. I upgraded to a Dynabrade while back and it was better yet (6" DA air sander). But in days not long ago, you saw more jitterbugs or 1/2 sheet sanders. What's the difference between a Jitterbug and a 1/2 sheet? Are they the same thing? I can see that a 1/2 sheet sander would have an advantage in sanding area and even more so in the sanding area per dollar since sheets are much cheaper than velcro discs. But speed also counts as do finish quality which are very much interelated. Without finish quality, there is more time hand sanding out pigtails/swirls etc left by a random orbital sander. Does a 1/2 sheet leave a better finish?

[George Gyulatyan]

I have a Bosch 1/2 sheet sander and a DeWalt random orbit sander. In general I find the random orbit sander to be somewhat more aggressive and faster. Both sanders will leave marks with coarse sandpaper, with the ROS you end up with swirlies while with the 1/2 sheet sander you end up with tiny circles if you don't move it around. To minimise it just let the weight of the sander do it's thing and don't linger in one area too long.

Because of it's shape the 1/2 sheet sander can get to corners that the ROS can't.

[Josiah Bartlett]

I have an old half sheet Craftsman sander that has both Random Orbit and Straight Line (jitterbug) mode through a lever on the side. I really like the thing, and I hope I never wear it out, because there isn't anything like it now that I can find. The previous owner of my house left it in the garage, and I use the thing quite a bit as an intermediate between a belt sander and a 1/4 sheet sander or a palm sized ROS, although sometimes I break out the air powered DA sander if there aren't any corners to worry about.

[Rob Cunningham]

I have a Bosch 1/2 sheet sander and 5" ROS. I find that I use the 1/2 sheet sander most of the time, especially on narrow work like rails and stiles.

[Lee Schierer]

Most 1/2 sheet sanders had one of two types of sanding motion, back and forth or orbital. Some Craftsman (and possibly others) could be changed from one to the other with a lever on the base. The problem was that if you let the sander sit in one place for a length of time you would get little swirl marks on the wood, particularly in orbital mode. The back and forth types tended to be slow. Random orbit sanders (not to be confused with rotary sanders) also have an orbital action, but it is constantly changing directions so you don't tend to get swirl marks. In general a random orbit sander will remove more wood faster for any given grit than a 1/2 sheet sander. I find that I do the rough sanding with my ROS and on fine grain woods like cherry and maple I finish off the large areas with my 1/2 sheet sander set for back and forth motion.

[Mike Schuch]

I have 3 rockwell/porter cable 505 half sheet snders and have found them to be the best of half shet sanders I have tried.
There is no equal to a 505 forsanding large areas like carcuse. I keep a different grit in each 505 so a can sand a whole side before having to rotate the work piece to another side.
For smaller work pieces I prefer my 6 in porter cable rndom orbit. It is more aggresivethan a half sheet.
I dont get much use out of my 1/4 sheet porter cable. But it is handy for some small projects.