Porter Cable PC7336

[Jack Clay]

I am looking for thoughts on a Porter Cable PC7336 with dust collection. If you have used it what do you think of it.

[Kevin Burandt]

PC7336 dominates the car polishing crowd 10:1 over all others which was the reason for my original purchase. That's all these guys do all day so they must know something. I added the dust collection kit a year or two later and started using it for WW. It's the best thing I've ever used. However, I can only compare it to cheaper 5" ROS and that's not really a fair comparison.

Plenty of power and dust collection works very well, even with the little hose that comes with the dust collection kit. I've thought about getting an adapter to run a larger hose to the sander but it works so well I don't really have a good reason other than being paranoid about dust.

Performance on wood - No swirl marks, gouges, etc. The hooks on the pad are still in great shape.

Would I buy again? Sure but doubt it will ever wear it out. I'd also check out the Bosch. The Bosch may be a bit easier to work in tighter places.

Kevin

[Jack Clay]

In my research I seen it has variable speed. I have never had a sander with this. Is the variable speed much of an advantage? What do you hook the hose to a shop vac. or a dust collector. This seems to be a good sander for the price. Thanks for the help.

[Thomas Pender]

When I use mine, I tend to use higher speed for higher grits (220 plus) and lower for lower grits - 100, etc. Seems to work on controlling dust.

Also, when finishing off, I move with the grain - looks great. I agree that this is a sweet machine. I use the hose it came with and send it to my Festool dust collector, which adapts perefectly and since the plug swtiches it on, no coordination is needed. (Note: I have a big Oneida dust collector, but nothing works as well as the Festool stuff on this kind of machine, IMHO.) I understand from many that they love their Festool sander, but you can buy two PC's for the price of one Festool and truthfully, I cannot tell the difference, but some can. Oh - I use the Gold Mirka sandpaper - I like this much better than other stuff.

I have just never had a problem with this PC tool - it sees use every week and I am happly I bought it (from Amazon).:D

[Dar Lounsbury]

My shop has 3 of the PC sanders. Love 'em. As others have said, use Gold Mirka sandpaper.