Wood Sanders Overview Rating

16 best grinding machines

Review of the best according to the editorial board of expertology.Ru. About the selection criteria. This material is subjective, is not an advertisement and does not serve as a guide to the purchase. Before buying, you need to consult with a specialist.

In the widest assortment of power tools that abound in the modern market, grinders occupy a serious niche. They are used for a variety of types of surface treatment. From rough preliminary (or cleaning) to fine finishing polishing. At the same time, the machines themselves can be structurally fundamentally different, which largely determines the exact scope of their application. Expertology experts have prepared for you a rating of the best grinders to date, which are affordable for the average consumer, and not just professionals.

How to choose a grinding machine

To begin, consider a list of criteria that should be followed when choosing a grinder for use at home or in your own small workshop.

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Professional or household?

We have already hinted above that the review will focus on affordable cars, which automatically implies household or, at most, semi-professional models. Here we will briefly explain why.

Professional power tools for almost all technical characteristics are incomparably higher than any household ones. Such models were originally designed for continuous continuous work in several work shifts. It is important not only the endurance of moving parts, but also the reliability of secondary components, blocks, parts. All this puts forward such high demands on a professional power tool that even a model limited in functionality cannot, by definition, even have an average price.

That is why, if you do not plan to open a construction company, and you need a grinder from time to time, there is no point in buying a professional unit. It is too expensive and impractical. A good household grinder can very well cope with the needs of a small private workshop.

Angle grinders (angle grinder)

The most common, practically “popular” form factor of grinders is the “angle grinder”, that is, angle grinders that are well known to children. By the way, many people mistakenly believe that the word “angular” refers to the purpose for processing angles, while in fact it means a design feature. The working shaft is at right angles to the plane of the engine.

It so happened that machines of this type in the vast majority of cases are bought and used for cutting, and not for grinding. In addition, this is too large a niche to consider on a par with other form factors. That is why in the framework of this rating we will consider only those machines that are no longer used in any way, except for grinding, and we will consider the “angle grinder” as a separate topic.

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Belt Sanders

In belt grinders, an abrasive tape glued into a ring is used, as you might guess, as a working surface. Depending on the model, the width of such a tape can vary from 65 to 110 mm. Two end rollers attach rotation to the belt. Movement speed. From 150 to 400 meters per minute.

Most often, such machines are used for rough pre-treatment of smooth surfaces. They are widely used in interior decoration, when you need to quickly and without much effort remove a thick layer of material or polish plastered areas. Also, such a form factor can cope with the processing of parts of doors and windows in the process of their manufacture. In rare cases, they find application at intermediate stages in the process of painting a car.

High productivity of tape machines has a reverse side. Roughness of processing. They leave noticeable traces of processing. Scuffs, scratches, indentations. Therefore, for final finishing it is necessary to use a different type of machine.

Vibratory grinding machines

Machines of this type are also called surface grinding precisely because of the shape of the working surface and the nature of the treatment. The main working part is a soft rectangular sole. When you turn on the sole starts to make reciprocating movements with a small amplitude, but with great speed, due to which the effect is achieved.

Here, there is a direct dependence of the surface processing speed and its quality on the amplitude of the sole movement. The larger the amplitude, the higher the material removal rate, but at the same time the quality decreases. Therefore, if it is extremely desirable for you to perform preliminary and finishing grinding with the same machine, look at the models that allow you to adjust the speed and / or amplitude. If you plan to handle hard-to-reach spots, you will need a delta grinder with a sole in the shape of an iron.

Surface grinding machines can use different methods of fastening the abrasive sheet. With the help of clamp-terminals or with Velcro. Clamp machines are most often cheaper and generally more versatile due to the simplified selection and availability of consumables. As for the “Velcro”. This mount is corny more convenient. Many models support both types of mounting, and in our rating we will consider several such examples.

Eccentric Sanders

Finally, eccentric machines are special grinders in which circular rotation is added to the reciprocating moment. This adds to the efficiency of the device and makes them almost indispensable when processing curved and shaped surfaces. It is these machines that are most often used for ultra-fine polishing.

Eccentric machines differ in the frequency of revolutions of the disk and the amplitude of the oscillations. The dependence of processing speed and quality on the amplitude here is exactly the same as that of surface grinding machines. Replaceable abrasive sheets are attached using a clamp or the same “Velcro”.

Dust removal

Whatever type of grinder you are looking for to purchase, you should definitely pay attention to the availability of a complete dust removal system. Most often, household machines are equipped with compact bags, filters, dust collectors, but it is also desirable that the design of the unit provides the ability to connect to an external vacuum cleaner. In no case should you neglect high-quality dust removal or, moreover, save on this issue, since the “fog” that the grinder raises is most often fatal to health.

If you plan to process surfaces made of plastic, an eccentric machine, or a vibrating machine with a low platform speed, is best suited. The same machines are suitable for metal processing, only the granularity of the abrasive should be several times higher. For fine polishing, fiber or fan disks are used instead of abrasive.