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Take a look at the photo above. What do you see? Of course it’s a couple sanders! And I’ll give you that both are made by Mirka, the company that serves up Abranet (our favorite sanding product). But if that’s all you see, look again.
What you see is a revolution in sanding for the home woodworker (and many others).
The tool on the right is a common, if you will, air-driven sander. If you’ve never worked with an air-driven sander, you’re missing plenty. If given a choice between an air-driven sander and an electric-powered random-orbit sander, I’m all over the air tool , unless there is no air compressor, a rather larger air compressor, available. 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. However, what should stand out in the photo is the power cord attached to the rear of the tool. That’s the big news.
Our guy from Mirka, Pete Kern, walked into the Popular Woodworking Magazine shop Thursday and plunked this bad boy onto the Gluebo workbench. The new sander, expected to hit the U.S. market sometime this summer, is known as “CEROS.” It has a brushless motor (which offers higher efficiency and reliability), has variable speeds from 4,000-10,000 rpm and is powered by electric; you don’t have to own a big honking air compressor to make it work.
Now take a look at the photo above. That black box is the power supply for the sander. You don’t plug this tool directly into the outlet. You plug the tool into a power supply and it is plugged into the outlet. That’s due to the DC motor.
Here’s a closer look at the back of the tool, the operations area. The red button is the on/off switch (there’s 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. And I’m sure you noticed the dust port. With this sander, along with Mirka’s Abranet sanding product and a dust extractor (look for this from Mirka by year’s end), you’re as close to dust-free sanding as you can get.
And how do you keep all this stuff together? If you look closely, you’ll noticed that the box in which this setup is sent is very, very familiar. I know for a fact that it connects to the boxes, Systainers if you please, from the other company.
I knew I wanted this sander the minute I heard it describe over the phone. 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, I’ll use it a bit more. In the coming days, I’ll post more information on the Ceros , then shoot a short video to further build your desire.
