Just to chime in,
The Porter Cable wood sander is a well-built tool. Works great for sanding wood and for polishing paint.
While I was at Meguiar's I had a guy attend our TNOGS that was an engineer for Black & Decker. He said he would pass-on some feedback from yours truly about the Porter Cable. I simple said or recommended that if they were to increase the power a little and fix the component that reduces or increases power to the spindle so that you could feel and hear an actual difference in speed as you reduced or increased the speed dial setting PLUS make the speed dial ratchet so when you turned it to a specific number on the dial it would stay there, (most tools don't have this simple feature), then it would be a great tool.
He told me the people at Black & Decker simply didn't care for feedback. :laughing:
Years later, I met with the Engineers at FLEX over in Germany. They wanted to pick my brain about tools. I told them I thought and still think there's a market for a GREAT 8mm free spinning random orbital polisher. Here's the link to my documentation on this meeting.
See Post #13
Secret meeting with the Flex Engineers!
They didn't care or listen either.
My Observation
RUPES invented and introduced, (that's 2 things), the long stroke free spinning random orbital polishers in 12mm, 15mm and 21mm - and then everyone else jumped on the band wagon and at the same time forgot about or lost interst in short stroke polishers.
In my opinion this is a mistake. And I explain why in my article I've linked to below.
It has to do with why LONG stroke polishers are so PRONE to PAD STALLING and short stroke polishers are so much LESS prone to pad stalling.
The ghosting footprint and the actual footprint - Long Stroke Free Spinning Orbital Polishers
It has to do with the leverage created by the outer edge of the pad. Pretty simple to figure out if you just buff out a thousand or so cars with all the different types of tools on the market and then - pay attention to what's happening.
I like the Griot's G9 but prefer the shorter, more compact size of the Porter Cable. The Griot's Garage 6" Random Orbital Polisher was the best short stroke polisher on the market and now is discontinued. It had less power than the current G9 but it had the shorter, more compact body or chassis that some people prefer over the longer body or chassis you see with so many other tools.
Even Meguiar's dumped the shorter, more compact G110 for the MT300, which like so many tools today have the longer body or chassis.
My Prediction (even though no one has listened to me for 15+years)
I believe there's a strong market for a new, better, greater 8mm short stroke free spinning random orbital polisher. We're just waiting for someone that makes tools to figure it out.
And for the love of humanity - any tool maker that reads this into the future, please don't get caught up on the long stroke bandwagon. There's a time and place for long stroke, but the real market, that is the average person that wants to buy one tool and take care of just their own cars - the next evolution in a PC style tools is what you want to create.
