I got a call yesterday morning from the service desk at the repair shop to tell me that the warranty repair on my 6" Rigid sander was all set and I can come pick it up. Fantastic, it took a full month to sort out the warranty issues and I wish I had it a day sooner, but not a big deal. So I drove down to Manchester at lunch and picked it up and when I got home I went straight to the boatshed to try it out. The 5" DeWalt is really more of a finish sander and just wasn't up to the task of sanding down some of the crappier parts of my fiberglass job.
I started up on the bow and sanded down the fairing mix I had slathered on the day before and the big sander made short work of it. Sweet. Smooth as a baby's bottom (with a little diaper rash); The last layer of glass will go down nicely and should make the final fairing much easier.
Since I was having so much fun, I decided that I would tackle the rest of the foredeck that hadn't been faired. I was thinking to myself: "Wow, this sander rocks, it does more in 5 minutes than the DeWalt did in 30". It really cut down the ridges and resin squeeze-outs like they were butter and got the deck down to where I would need only a thin skim of fairing compound.
About 20 minutes in though, I noticed that the sander started losing power and speed. I thought that I might have bumped the variable speed control, but it quickly became apparent that there was something very wrong with the unit. I kept at it and fiddled with the speed control adjustments and the rotational axis a bit, but eventually came to the conclusion that the sander was still screwed up. Damn!
So it looks like I will be headed back down to the tool shop again to hopefully get this thing fixed once and for all. I hate the thought of going back to the DeWalt because it is just sooo slow; I may have to spring for a new sander (probably not a Rigid) if this repair job takes another month.
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