Best Small Detail Woodworking Sander
Rikon 31-200 12v Cordless 2-inch Sander Review
A few weeks ago, I’m sitting at my desk, shopping for tools on Amazon, and wham…I get hit right in the face. I see this Rikon 2” orbital sander, and it’s a 12v cordless. I knew instantly I had to buy it, and two seconds later, it’s on the way!
I can’t believe I’ve never seen this sander before!
Rikon Detail Sander (Acme Tools) - https://imp.i284638.net/do1bBq
Rikon Detail Sander (ToolsToday) - https://shrsl.com/3truc
Rikon Detail Sander (Amazon) - https://amzn.to/3U3UddC
Extra 2-inch Sanding Disc 300 Pack - https://amzn.to/3nzNSKC
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I’ve seen sanders like this before but none in this price range. Mirka makes one that’s $254. They also make a cordless version that’s $785! Now, obviously I know that Mirka’s going to be far superior to this, but the Rikon is actually doing the job that I need it to do. And yes, I know that Milwaukee just came out with one. I know because I just ordered it.
Now, I understand that this is a $100 tool, so I have to set my expectations for that. However, it comes nicely packaged in a nice hard case to keep it in. Everything you need to use the sander is already in the box. You get the sander, the battery, the charger, some sanding discs, and some detail pads. I picked up a pack of assorted sanding discs. They’re not made by Rikon, but they fit this sander in assorted grits from 60 all the way up to 3000.
Out of the box I put the battery in the charger, went inside and when I came back out about 30 minutes later, the battery was ready to go. There’s several uses I’ve already thought about and used it for. One of those uses is for the small trays I make on the CNC, and I need to be able to sand inside those pockets. One of the things that has always frustrated me was getting those tooling marks out of the inside of those pockets. I’ve always done it by hand, and it takes forever. And trying to sand inside those pockets with a 5” sander just doesn’t work.
Now, this sander isn’t super powerful. You’re not just going to bear down on it and make grooves or things like that. This is a detail sander, a fine-finish sander. Although, with the 80-grit pad I was able to take off a lot of material pretty quickly. I was actually quite surprised by that. On one tray, I needed to fill a hole with some CA glue, and this sander was able to smooth out that CA glue after it was dry like it was nothing. I was impressed with how fast it took off those tooling marks and how fast it worked.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve built something and I needed to get into a tight space to sand because I just forgot, or maybe there’s some glue in there that I needed to get up. You could do it by hand, but if it’s a large area, you’re going to be there awhile. A detail sander will get in there pretty easily. It’s perfect to get into small spaces. It lacks dust collection, though
It also comes with a contour pad so that you’re able to get on rounded edges, like a dowel or on rounded edges on my trays, and it won’t damage that edge. You actually get quite a bit of accessories with it. You get two contour pads, the hard pad, a foam polishing pad that sticks onto the hook-and-loop, and fluffy polishing pad, and a terry cloth polishing pad. You could even use the terry cloth pad to polish your boots if you wanted to do that.
Is this perfect? Of course not. It is not the best quality tool I have in the shop, but it works extremely well for what I’m using it for. That’s kinda where you need to set your expectations on this. This isn’t the same as the 5” random orbital sander that you have. You have to understand that this is a detail sander. It’s the last step.
What’s the difference between the Rikon sander and an oscillating tool that you could put a sanding pad on? The oscillating tool is just going side-to-side. You wind up with a lot of scratches in your finish. The head of the Rikon is going around, and if you’re using a higher-grit sandpaper, you shouldn’t have any swirls anyway.
There are a couple of things I don’t like that I wish they would improve on, maybe in the next version. I don’t care for how you have to turn it on. I wish there were just an on-off switch or maybe even one with a variable dial. You turn it on by pushing and holding the power button, wait until you see the lights, then you push the ‘plus’ button to ramp up the speed. To turn it off, you push and hold the power button again. On the lowest speed it’s almost unusable. At top speed, it works really good. I used it to take some paint off of a stool, paint that’s been on the stool for a while. Under normal pressure, this thing works fantastically.
With the polishing pad, you could use it to polish epoxy resin, old headlights or chrome, anything you need to polish. With the terry cloth pad, you can use it to put on board butter, and it will buff it out to a nice satin sheen. If you want to pick up some Outlaw's Board Butter, I’ll give you a 20% off discount. Just use the code DETAIL at checkout.
Because it’s not a random orbit sander, it’s just spinning, there’s no vibration. It’s very similar in size to a router or a drill. It easily fits in a drawer. As far as Rikon tools go, I’ve had the 14” Rikon bandsaw for quite awhile now, and I’ve been nothing short of impressed with it. The detail sander comes with a 2-year warranty.
This is literally a game-changing tool. I really have no idea how I got along without it. For the price, if it’s in your budget, I don’t think you’ll regret buying something like this. You’ll find yourself using it all the time. I’ve been using it since I got it. If you knew about this tool, and you didn’t tell me, shame on you.
You can watch the full video review here - https://youtu.be/-5H_Bw7FzMw
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