It might be time to establish some terms regarding polishers

[Accumulator]

I have a couple of inexpensive air da's, and use the heck out of them for sanding mainly....and have used an air da for some polishing, etc.

Not recommended for the untrained however.

Grumpy

Are those somehow different from my little 3" pneumatic RO?



It seems to behave about the same as the "air DAs" I used in the bodyshop, but that was 30-some years ago and I might be missing something here :think: The ones in the shop *did NOT* have "forced" mode; they were "singles" and probably were from ND, not that I remember...but they were called "DA"s.

 

[Kevin Brown]

I should probably clarify, National Detroit's DA machines are single mode only, powered orbit combined with free floating rotation. They are quite emphatic about not building dual-mode machines. They feel that compromises the mechanism.

pc

... I might be missing something here :think: ...

Join the club! I'm lost now, too.



National Detroit's website is down, and most online product descriptions seem to be of the cut & paste variety. I know with certainty that my stereo shop friends (and paint & body shops) use machines that can be run in random or forced rotation mode (where the user twists a collar or flicks a cam to lock or unlock the rotation).



Sooo... if what the other pc just mentioned is correct (he's a beyond-brilliant guy, so it likely is)...



National Detroit's patent for a dual action machine was in actuality a random orbital?



Whew! :knockout:

 

[Accumulator]

Kevin Brown- Heh heh, it's reassuring when you and I are both about a seemingly simple thing like this :chuckle: And it's , uhm..telling



Maybe the explanation is simply that different people view and express certain things differently, using vaguely defined terms, and we're trying to force something that's just not gonna happen. There's no Académie française-like authority to carve this stuff in stone.



I can't even see this one as something that's truly cut-and-dried, and I'm more pedantic than most when it comes to such stuff.



Eh, IMO when there are two motions going on..uhm, gee maybe I oughta say "two actions"... whether they're powered/locked or not somebody can say "dual action" and how is that wrong? Won't astound me if we never reach a consensus.



FWIW, I'm just gonna keep saying "DA/RO" to cover those particular bases, and "fixed/powered rotation" when I'm referring to something like the Flex 3401.