Jet Oscillating Sander Questions

[Roger Bullock]

My local tool dealer was reducing machines on his floor that were not moving as quickly as others to free up space. He offered to sell me the Jet Oscillating Sander at a price I couldn't pass up and since my wife needed a Christmas gift idea, all 3 of use are happy. My question is, any comments on using an oscillating sander, how you get the most use from yours, and most importantly, comments on where and what to purchase for sanding sleeves?

[Chris Rosenberger]

I recently got a used Grizzly G1071 Spindle sander. It looks similar to the Jet. One of the first things I noticed that I did not like about it was that it had 10 different size spindles & only 3 different sized table inserts. The holes in the 3 inserts were also elongated for use when the table is tilted. This leaves huge gaps around the spindles. That is not a problem on large parts, but makes it impossible to sand some small parts. I made several wood inserts that have round holes that fit closer to the spindles.

The next problem was poor dust collection. I improved this by cutting some foam rubber strips to fill the gap between the table & base. Dust collection is now very good.

I had a Clayton Spindle sander before getting the Grizzly. I have always gotten my sleeves from either Grizzly or Klingspor.

http://www.woodworkingshop.com/category.aspx?id=24

http://www.grizzly.com/catalog/2011/Main/160

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o303/chrisrosenb/DSCF1651.jpg

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o303/chrisrosenb/DSCF1652.jpg

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o303/chrisrosenb/DSCF1650.jpg
(http://www.grizzly.com/catalog/2011/Main/160)

[Stan Mitchell]

Bought a Jet JBOS-5 bench top spindle sander a couple of months ago. Excellent little sander.

It's actually too big to put on a bench top, so I built a roll-around cart with a single drawer that's about 18" tall to set it on. The stand also gives me a place to put spare sanding sleeves and such. Spindle sanders typically don't get used every day, so having wheels on it makes it easy to keep it tucked into a corner out of the way until needed.

I agree with Chris about the inserts having too big a gap. I'm going to have to make some wooden inserts for mine as well. The small spindles are usually for very small pieces of work and the gap between the insert and the spindle is just too big for this.

I previously had an inexpensive bench top spindle sander. It was noisy, but worked okay until the universal motor fried after a couple of weeks of light use. The Jet spindle sander has an induction motor and it's so smooth running in comparison.

[Ryan Lee]

Great ideas guys. I have one as well and it doesn't get used much, but when it does it comes in very handy. I used it to custom scribe my hardwood floor to my fireplace hearth. Tilted the table and undercut each board individually. Took a really long time, but the result looks great!

[Roger Bullock]

Chris, thanks for the tip on making additional inserts, your Grizzly shop made inserts appear to be around 1/2 inch thick. The inserts that came with the Jet are less than a 1/4 inch so I will need to make them out of something pretty hard for stability. The dust shield is a good idea too, thanks. Stan, I actually set my sander on an extra roll around base just to move it into place when I brought it into the shop and quickly realized making a base as you described was the way to go. Is there ever an end to woodworking projects, I don't think so. Ryan, thanks for the additional tip to use the sander. I can see using your tip in the future.

[Chris Rosenberger]

Chris, thanks for the tip on making additional inserts, your Grizzly shop made inserts appear to be around 1/2 inch thick. The inserts that came with the Jet are less than a 1/4 inch so I will need to make them out of something pretty hard for stability. The dust shield is a good idea too, thanks. Stan, I actually set my sander on an extra roll around base just to move it into place when I brought it into the shop and quickly realized making a base as you described was the way to go. Is there ever an end to woodworking projects, I don't think so. Ryan, thanks for the additional tip to use the sander. I can see using your tip in the future.

You are welcome Roger. I made the inserts the same thickness as the depth of the insert recess in the table. On my sander the depth is a little under 11/16". I made mine out of scraps that I saved from laminated & finger jointed 1x paint grade poplar.

[Matt Meiser]

I've got the benchtop Jet. I just got it this year (Craigslist find) so I don't have a ton of time on it but I like it overall. I ordered sanding sleeves from Klingspor. Probably not the lowest price, but I knew I'd get good quality.