Thanks folks. I know about the issues with silicone and that's why I didn't
just try that solution without some input. Ed and Allyn thoughts about a
wear component that effects the orbital actions makes sense. When I have it
on the piece and under load it seems like it only spins and that there is no
orbit to 'redirect' the motion. It might makes sense that a wearing or worn
part would let it orbit with no load (which it does) but is too worn to do
it under load.

Course now I have to try and find the manual.

SteveP.

"Highland Pairos" wrote in message
...
My Bosch 5" ROS has recently become very hard to handle. I have had it
for a few years now and have always found it to be quite easy to handle
and yet powerful. However, lately I have barely been able to keep it on
the work surface. I can see that it moves in both the circular as well as
random motions still. I took the pad off to see what I could and found
that there is a rubber ring that rides against the back of the sanding pad
to direct the airflow for the dust collection through the proper ports. I
found that the ring was caked with paint residue. Not thinking that this
was relevant, I cleaned the residue off anyway before I put it back
together. It was much more manageable, for a while. It went back to its
difficult behavior fairly quickly. I took it apart again and found that
the ring was again covered with paint residue, (BTW I was trying to sand
out some primer). I cleaned it again and it ran better. I do not
understand why the paint residue would cause it to behave the way that it
does. Has anyone had the strange problem? I was thinking about putting a
very light coat of silicone spray on the ring to see if that would prevent
the paint from sticking to it. Does anyone have any better ideas?

SteveP.