What is your favorite air sander for general purpose? (brand, model etc)

 

That's like asking favorite style sex. Hard to pick just one. If I had to keep just one sander it would be my old jitterbug type, so old not even markings on it. My airfile, DA, and B&D mouse style electric all have their unique uses.

 

I am pretty happy with my hutchins 3500 orbital for sanding. With the correct pads and paper, these can also be used for dry color sanding, but I personally still to that by hand wet. With the constant use it gets in the bodyshop, I needed a good brand that will hold up to a lot of use, and be lightweight and comfortable. I found a good deal on it somewhere on the net, for around 150 shipped. I belive the snappy guy hocks these for close to 300. dynabrade is suppose to make good orbital palm sanders as well. For a regular da for a bit heavier duty work (can be used to sand a body too, we did for year, but not as fine sanding, and fights to jump around more and stay flat then the orbitals). We used these for years to sand cars, before there were really orbital palm sanders out there. There are a lot of different brands of da's that seem to work fine. I had an old craftsman that finally bought the farm a few years ago after 15 years of use. National detroit makes good da's as well. Watch the air requirements on these, some really don't eat up a lot of air, others are air hogs, if you have a smaller compressor.
For 8" used for more heavy duty work for knocking down bigger areas of filler. stripping paint (assuming you have the compressor to run it without pausing more then your working), , National Detroits 900 mud hog is about the best I've used. I bought a snappy model years ago, and it has no where near the power or as fast as the national detroit, and the snappy brand isn't that cheap either. In fact I had to dump oil in my snappy one right out of the box, wouldn't turn when it took it out of the box and hooked up to air, a few weeks after I bought it.
I have a viking air board file. I don't use it a lot. It is okay, but as dust builds up, it likes to quit moving, and need to be blown out and the track lubed. I think hutchins has a good rep for board files.

 

Thanks for all of the advice!