Hi All,

I'm contemplating buying a sander/polisher, basically a low/variable speed angle grinder,
but can't make my mind up between a quality machine or a cheapy.

£50 (ish) buys a Silverline of eBay, or, do I lash out £200 (ish) on a Makita 9227CB ?

This won't be an every day tool, but on the other hand will get used for several hours when it is used.
Polishing aluminium would be it's main use, but no doubt "the boy" will borrow it for paintwork use.

What makes do body shops use?
Any one on here have any experience?
Makes, good or bad. Any to avoid?

Thanks in anticipation.
Paul G

I have a Silverline one - it's a solid & well-made thing, with electronic speed control, pre-set max rpm, & stuff like that. Quite heavy, but reasonably quiet.

I haven't used it for extended periods (I've hardly used it at all!) but it never sounds stressed when in use.

Shout if you want to give it a good looking over...

[Edited on 4/10/11 by David Jenkins]

If you are doing this so you can polish your 7, forget it !
I bought a brand new silverline polisher to do my 7 and its way to big and unwieldly to do any real polishing
all the curves bends bars brackets etcget in the way, so you have to manually polish around them
once you have done that, there isnt much of the car left to do !!

I think my best polishing was done with a drill and buffer wheel

Steve

I have a Silverline polisher that seems to have been borrowed and abused by every man and his dog and it's never let me down. For occasional use (rather than, say, in a paint shop) I don't think you can go too far wrong with these.

agreed, got one of the orange ones, not heavy use but polished a few cars, several times, plus a couple of reprays have been compounded with it.

I have a Silverline one... It's a heavy machine and one of the better "cheap" polishers. Fitted with proper mops (you can get a cone for them) for polishing metal apparently some professionals use them this way as they are a lot cheaper than a "professional one"; but they will ware out if you use it a lot/use a lot of pressure. If you use the cone and mop you will ware out the bearings quicker as they are not designed for side loading (but that's what I am doing, not enough polishing yet to say how long it will last)...

Also don't choose the largest mops but go for smaller ones to keep the load down on the bearing if using a cone.

Dan

Thanks for all the replies so far.

David. I'D LOVE TO,
but with the price of fuel I just might as well just buy one.


Interesting about the side loading of the bearings.
As well as the normal discs and sponges I was thinking of these.

polisher tools


I already have a bench polisher that takes up to 10" mops, which is fine for bits that come off the car.
Even mudguards are possible on this although a bit of a hand full.

Thanks again,
Paul G

You can get polishing heads to fit on variable speed rotary sanders which are a lot smaller than the angle grinder type polisher and easier to manoeuvre.

^^ Those mops are I think the same size as mine (not sure, just moved house and no chance of checking at the moment!)... The poblem is the cone sticks out a lot, I may get mine machined down a bit (there is lot's of spare meat on the hex part) this would help reduce the side load on the bearings..

[Edited on 4/10/11 by Bluemoon]

we use a cheapy silverline one and its done 3 years hard labour now!! It makes an awful din like a straight cut box, but then it always has done and has never got worse!

I have a Silverline, it has been used to polish the F/G hulls of three boats, mine and two, (can I borrows), so gets used all day more or less on each one. I have also used it to polish the cars, (3 off), on an infrequent basis. So far no sign of it getting worn or tired, :-) HTH Ray

quote:

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Originally posted by NS Dev
we use a cheapy silverline one and its done 3 years hard labour now!! It makes an awful din like a straight cut box, but then it always has done and has never got worse!

---

Yep mine is also noisy not sure how much better the expensive ones are in this department.. I think there are some very good US make machines but will cost £££...

Sorry Paul, I led you astray... mine is a Draper Expert Angle Polisher, which I bought from JustOffBase (local to us, based in Bury St Edmunds). Mine was a bit cheaper at £82 though (inflation plus higher VAT) - and it was a Christmas prezzie!

It's a formidable beast, and relatively quiet. The offer to take a look at it still stands...

cheers,
David

Thanks David but I have bitten the bullet and gone for the Makita.

I found it on special offer for £189.95 at Axminster this morning.
He doesn't know it yet but the tax man will make a contribution towards it as well.

There is the odd benefit to being self employed.


Thanks to everyone for their contributions to this thread.

Cheers,
Paul G

Hi All.

Just to put this thread to bed so to speak the Makita arrived today.

I was expecting it to be bigger. It's sort of half way between a 7" grinder and a 4.5" grinder,

and quiet, I'll say it's quiet. It was easy to talk to the Missus while I was showing her how to use it.



Well, I can live in hope can't I.

Thanks everyone.

Paul G

sounds a good bit of kit.

When old noisy dies we'll go for one of those.

The silverline is bigger, sort of between 7" and 9" grinder

I've had a Makita for 22years. One set of brushes about four years ago, and it's used every week and more. You can't go wrong. Everything else is Hitachi, same reliability.

Cheers,
Nev.

Going off track now, but we also use makita or hitachi for all our grinders etc (the polisher is the only real cheapy in there) and have been great until lately, Hitachi seem to have gone a bit cheap with their smaller grinders.

I have 5 4.5" hitachi grinders, all the same model, and the switches on 2 have broken and the com lost a segment on the oldest one.

On the plus side, they are very nicely made from a repair point of view, dead easy to fix the switches, a slightly modified toggle switch slots straight in inside!

I've taken a photo for size comparison.


size comparison

Cheers,
Paul G

Looks good, I expect it will be the better buy in the long run, if a few more ££.