My thought is to buy another electric sander. Pnuematic air sanders are miserable to use IMHO.
1. My Sioux DA consumers about 20 CFM and runs my 60 gallon/5 HP air compressor continuously. It's deafening to listen to. And doesn't it seems like 5 HP is overkill to turn a little 5" disc?
2. The big stiff pneumatic air hose is far more constraining then a small electric cord. It actually wears on you tugging and fighting these stiff/heavy hoses.
I haven't noticed any significant difference in performance between an electric DA or pneumatic DA. I'll take electric any day. To each his own.
All reasonable.
Here's my take. My compressor is 7.5HP, and it came out of a body shop that would normally have two guys working simultaneously. A lot of 5HP compressors are really only 3HP...
Before I bought my first 6" Dynabrade, my experiences with RO sanders were electric too.
I used a 5" that looked like this:
And a 6" that looked like this:
The 5" sander had my hand way too high up, causing all sorts of finger and wrist strain. And it had almost no power. The pad would stop rotating at only the slightest of pressure. The 6" sander was a bear to one-hand, though it did have enough power to get real work done. Both vibrated way too much. Self generated dust collection on the 5" was a joke. On the 6", it was kind of ok, but the vacuum noise was awful.
My Dynabrades have my hand nice and low, meaning I can just rest my palm on the paddle without needing a death grip to keep it stable, and they hardly vibrate at all. Self-generated vacuum on these is minimally acceptable, but I'll still sometimes use a shop vac for improved cleanliness.
As for the air hose, I use a swivel lead-in hose that I velcro to the vacuum hose. Overall, it's less cumbersome than the collection bags on most sanders, and it lets me stick an inline oiler in a spot that's not annoying.
