• A number of tools can be used for sanding wood.Schleifmaschine image by Volker Gerstenberg from Fotolia.com
  
  An orbital sander is a power tool used for woodworking or automotive body repair that uses a circular sanding pad to smooth materials, rather than traditional sandpaper. It vibrates in small circles, or "orbits," rather than back and forth. If you have a woodworking or automotive body repair project that requires sanding, you should consider using an orbital sander because it has some significant advantages.
  
  

No Swirl Marks

• An orbital sander vibrates the sanding pad in an elliptical motion. This prevents the device from following the same path twice, which can cause swirl marks in the wood. Swirl marks mar the look of the finish. The head of an orbital sander vibrates in a circular manner, but it also moves side to side and back and forth.
  
  

Speed

• A standard palm sander moves quickly back and forth, but in very short movements. An orbital sander spins very fast, which enables it to sand much more quickly. If you have to sand a large area, then an orbital sander can reduce the time significantly. Even though these machines are fast, they don't take off too much material too quickly. This allows you to do fine detail on sanding jobs. The sanding disks are also simple to replace in a short amount of time.
  
  

Dust

• Most orbital sanders available come with a built-in dust ventilation system. This makes projects much cleaner while keeping your work area dust-free and dramatically reducing the amount of fine particles that you could breathe in, which is a health hazard.