April 2, 2012

Ye Olde Makita Orbital: R.I.P.

One of the first tools we got when we decided to take the plunge and live the life of the construction donkey was a Makita orbital sander. It came right after our DeWalt drill, our Makita circ saw, and our Bosch jigsaw. We've had this fella for a while and while we were clearing out the garage last weekend, we decided it was time to say goodbye to our old pal.

The old guy had just taken too many hits over the years to continue on as our primary orbital. In fact, there were too many hits for it to proceed as even our secondary or tertiary sander. A few gaskets were gone, the velcro pad was toast, and something internal kept making a grinding noise.

True story: we once lent the orbital to a girl we were working with (she was very new to construction) and a few hours later she announced, "this doesn't seem to be sanding too well!" We checked and realized that for about five hours she had been using the tool without any sandpaper, she'd just been pressing the velcro pad into the wood. Sigh. We replaced the pad after that one.

So anywho, we're here to say farewell to a good and trusty tool. One that got us through the infancy of our career and one that we'll always remember.

Makita orbitals at Amazon