On Sat, 10 Mar 2007 01:28:58 GMT, "Leon"
wrote:

Well it is unfortunate that the clamp bloke so soon. Mine lasted 12 years
before it broke.
My spring broke. You have to replace the pad assembly. If you take the
clamps off, the sander will not run properly. Why? I do no know but mine
would hardly run after taking the clamps off and it was a real PIA putting
them back on.

I ended up putting it back together to see if I could finish up what I
was doing. It seemed to run just ducky without one clamp, I thought
it would be unbalanced and unhappy about that, but it seemed fine.

If your pins came loose they can be put back in place if nothing is actually
broken or worn out. The clamp pivot pins have notches near the ends that
engage with the clamp. You have to hold you mouth just right and slip the
pin back in.

I briefly tried to get off the one that wasn't broken, for balance,
but gave up after a couple minutes. I figured it would take less work
to reassemble it and test it than to try to get it back on (if I ever
managed to get it off) if it turned out I needed them.

I like the sander, but I tend to use it on small parts which I find
easier to hold the sander up and bring the part to it rather than try
to find some way of keeping the part on the bench. And it's a wee bit
heavy to be holding up like that, which is why it's only seen light
use.

I've actually thought about bench mounting a sheet sander for this
type of work. The tapered round housing on the speedbloc doesn't
really lend itself, else I'd probably use it for that.


-Leuf