Hi just seen a Makita bo6030 for £70 new but without extras
Looks the best full fat model would I miss the metabo dual speed feature??
LOOK MORE CAREFULLY!: the BO 6030 is NOT a Forced Rotation model... it is just (
in my humble opinion), another "puny" little random orbit sander of the heap... I still have an old Bosch PE-12 AE Random Orbit sander with 125 mm diameter disc, small 3mm orbit size and only around 380 watt power, and believe me: all those RO sanders are just "toys"(DeWALT, Milwaukee, Ridgid, Ryobi etc.), useful for SMALL jobs, good for a compact piece of furniture, but
totally boring, tiresome and desperately slow for larger surfaces, like a concert piano or a large dinning table for 8 persons, not even good enough for a wood stair between two floors!
I became so dissatisfied with their lack of power and too small orbit size, that their sanding effectiveness seem to me just too low for a power sander. Perhaps useful for small jobs, but nothing else... (I tested them at a local Home Depot by taking with me a good sized piece of walnutand an assortment of 125 mm sanding discs)...
So, I saved a little money and went for the larger (6") and more powerful (ie: more than 700 Watt or 6.6 A at 120 Volts) models, like the Rotex from Festool, the large Bosch or the Makita BO 6050, all of these with both forced rotation (geared) and free spinning (polishing) rotation, and found the MAKITA BO 6050 quite less expensive and affordable for me than any Festool or Mirka, more strongly built than the Bosch (which has plastic gears!); and while is is not as perfectly balanced and smooth as the Festool or Mirka, it is perfectly usable, powerful (in forced rotation mode) and soft enough to polish something as delicate as a piano or the paint on my cars (
in uncoupled, free spinning mode); like having two machines in one. It would be perfect IF it were of lower profile (like the discontinued BO 6040 or the Mirka DEROS), but for me the price of those is unacceptable, and the DEROS is somewhat underpowered for my applications. Perhaps (and being a little too picky), I m considering buying a Bosch or Makita vibration decoupled side handle, either with a 8mm screw thread,to lessen the slight vibration, but it would be because I like the sander enough to pay some more money and keep it (
A Rotex 150 is way outside my budget!)
One important aspect demanded by the MAKITA BO 6050 is: You really need to pay attention to it, as it is very "brute-force" and needs to be operated always with the lateral handle mounted, and being well planted of the floor and holding the sander very firmly, to avoid any tilting on the flat surface! Once one learns how to "tame it", it will be as almost as powerful as a medium size (3"X 21") Belt sander, and capable of fine finish at the same time.
