Can you use an orbital sander for polishing etc?

[rumpelstiltskin]

Just wondering if you can use an orbital air sander for compounds and polishes?Are they too fast or could i just reduce the air flow to the sander so it won't burn the paint?

[PJ S]

What sort of speeds are you looking at with what you have in mind?
The type of machine you're referring to, iirc, is used by body repairers for wet/dry sanding.
Grab a scrap panel, try it out on that, and see how easy/difficult it is to get a good result - noise of the compressor and the sander probably stands out for me as being the major detraction, compared with a conventional rotary and/or random orbital polisher.

[TallPaul]

If you mean an air powered rotary as opposed to an air dual action (d.a.) then the answer is yes. The air powered sanders do, however, lack torque, so as soon as you start applying pressure to the panel it will slow quite drastically. They are also very difficult to reliably regulate the speed.
They are considerably cheaper than electric rotary sander/polishers though.

[rumpelstiltskin]

Its a da sander i have,was just looking though on Ebay and people are sometimes selling da sanders as sander/polishers?

[TallPaul]

You can get dual action polishers, I think PorterCable do them, but I very much doubt a D.A. sander will have a big enough "throw" to be of any use as a polisher.
TBH, I only ever use a rotary polisher, so somebody else may have better knowledge of what you're looking at, have you got a link to it?

[rumpelstiltskin]

I wasn't looking to buy one,i already have a DA sander and was wondering if i could use it for polishing etc,it's one similar to this one i bought a while back,just a cheap one but it's served me well.
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/PRO-6-DUAL-ACTION-ORBITAL-AI...

[TallPaul]

I guess its worth giving it a try, but I'd expect you to struggle to get any mop heads to fit it. If do you manage to fit a polish head, I'm sure it'll be slightly quicker than compounding/cutting by hand!