I believe manufacturers found that without the up and down motion the tools
were less satifactory when used as massagers

Matthew

wrote in message
oups.com...
Here is an interesting question - something to try an experiment with.
Hold a palm sander upside down against a bright, uniform background and
turn it on. (Careful!) Examine the edges of the pad. Does the pad move
in a plane? That is, does the "blur" you see caused by the pad movement
stay in a flat plane or is there some up-and-down component to it? I
tried this with a cheap finishing sander and it seemed to be flat, but
when I tried it with my new Bosch 1295 I could see that the pad did not
stay absolutely flat. There was a noticeable up-and-down component to
it.

Any comments or experiences?

-Ram.