I bought a Bosch 1297DK or something that looks identical three years ago. So far it's sanded 3 garage doors (not a typo) and trim from a craftsman, all of which I baked the paint off of with a heat gun + the pantry shelves without any complaints. It uses 1/4 sheet of regular sandpaper - just fold it in half twice and cut.

In your situation the best part is, you can replace the dust catcher with another off Amazon or get a port adapter and have it run to a vacuum. Perhaps you can do this with the one you already have?

This post was edited by schicksal on Sat, Jul 19, 14 at 8:54

I don't find palm sanders as functional, IMHO, as oscillating sanders. Palm sanders can only be used in one direction, whereas the oscillating sander can be used all over the place. A very inexpensive mouse sander can be used in corners and along edges.

Boy, I hope 'oscillating' is the right word. The round ones that also kind of jiggle.

Just out of curiosity, why are you sanding the doors? If you're removing a finish, you're going to work yourself to death. If it's a finish, get Citristrip and plastic bags. It'll take you longer to apply the stripper than it does for the stripper to remove it. Plus, you can smooth the rough grain with a 220 sanding pad in about 30 seconds a door. You can also do it with the doors in place if you want to. I do and have. No flesh-eating chemicals and won't even take the color out of your jeans. Swear!

Stop into a local pawnshop. At least you could hear the tool run before you bought it. I'd get a random orbital. I've got some 5" sandpaper from my Ryobi that died that I'd give you for free. It won't fit my new Festool.

CEFreeman, you're right; it's not a palm sander, it's an orbital sander. I get you on the doors, but I have some high gloss walls with rough texture that I'd like to smooth out and prep for painting.

schicksal, I know it can be replaced, but I've run out of the very, very little patience I have. I know as soon as I buy one, he'll get busy and order the parts. Grrrrrr......

Then you have two sanders. One for each of you, it'll make the job go faster :)

RANDOM ORBITAL sander. That's what I'm thinking!!

"Oscillating" is my Fein Multimaster.

Sorry. Glad you guys knew what I was talking about.

5" random orbit sander. Hook and loop pad (Velcro). Try to hook it up to any shop vacuum. You will have much better results with dust pickup.

I've had a Porter Cable 333 for years..Years! and have sanded thousands of feet with it. It has a 1" round dust pickup so it's easy to hook up to a vacuum.

Duplicate..again!

This post was edited by rmtdoug on Sat, Jul 19, 14 at 16:36

You want a random-orbit sander with hook and loop pad as others have mentioned. A better option than the dust bag is a shop vac hooked up to the dust port on the sander.