I still have my longe beloved PC330, which was the go-to palm sander for decades. I never use it any more, I only keep it for sentimental reasons. My Deros and Festool sanders sand rings around it.
I still have my longe beloved PC330, which was the go-to palm sander for decades. I never use it any more, I only keep it for sentimental reasons. My Deros and Festool sanders sand rings around it.
I have a Makita and a Bosch 1/4 sheet sander. The Makita I use with a syntho pad when cleaning cast iron surfaces. The Bosch probably has less than an hours use on it; had it well over 10 years.
"A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg".
– Samuel Butler
There's a number of tools that still exist simply because some people feel that there's always an option of a power tool to save time in doing something by hand. I suspect that those buying them are not woodworkers but carpenters.
I us a Festool DTS 400 EQ for inside corners and edges. that's what is was designed for and it does a really good job. My only complaint is that it will not accept the square base, that sucks.
I will try a different way to make the point I tried to make earlier. It isn't the shape of the pad that determines whether a sander is useful, it is the action of the pad. Linear motion leads to very slow progress and is to me a useless sander. I'd rather sand by hand. A square pad sander with orbital or random orbit motion is useful. Orbital will leave scratches, however. But they can be removed with a little hand sanding. A round pad random orbit sander is not better or worse than a square pad random orbit sander. The square pad can be an advantage in the corners.