Look at the image above. What do you see? It’s a pair of sanders, no doubt! And Ill give you that both are made by Mirka, the company that serves up Abranet (our favorite sanding product). But if thats all you see, look again.
This is a revolutionary revolution in sanding, for home woodworkers (and others).
The right-hand tool is an air-driven sander. If youve never worked with an air-driven sander, youre missing plenty. I would choose an air-driven random-orbit sander over an electric-powered one if given the choice. Unless there is an available air compressor, I will take the larger compressor. The sander on the left looks like the air-driven sander. It has that low-profile feel as you hold it that makes these sanders so much easier to use, and it sands every bit as well. The power cord that is attached to the back of the tool should be the most noticeable feature in the photo. Thats the big news.
Pete Kern, our Mirka guy, walked into the Magazine shop on Thursday and deposited the bad boy onto the Gluebo bench. The new sander, expected to hit the U.S. market sometime this summer, is known as CEROS. The brushless motor offers greater efficiency and reliability, has variable speeds between 4,000 and 10,000 rpm, and it is powered by an electric engine. You don’t need a huge honking compressor to make it run.
Take a look at this photo. The power supply for your sander is located in the black box. You dont plug this tool directly into the outlet. The tool is connected to a power supply, and then plugged into an outlet. This is due to the DC motor.
Heres a closer look at the back of the tool, the operations area. The red button is the on/off switch (theres also an on/off switch on the power supply box), the button to the left decreases the speed while the button to the right pumps more speed into the spin. You will have noticed the dust port. With this sander, along with Mirkas Abranet sanding product and a dust extractor (look for this from Mirka by years end), youre as close to dust-free sanding as you can get.
And how do you keep all this stuff together? If you look closely, youll noticed that the box in which this setup is sent is very, very familiar. It connects to Systainers, if you will, from the other company.
The minute I heard the sander described over the phone, I knew that I wanted it. And Bob Lang reached for his credit card as soon as it came out of the Systainer box. So while you drool and conjure up ways to get one in your shop, Ill use it a bit more. In the next days I will post more information about the Ceros and then make a short video to help you further your quest.
