While I am sure that vibration dampening gloves would improve operator comfort, they will do nothing to protect the tool. The true test of a random orbital polisher is to hold it in free air and allow it to run in a variety of speed settings. Any vibration you feel is created by an imbalance in the rotating assembly and creates a side load on the bearings in the tool, which increases drag, forces the motor to draw more power to maintain rotation (both in free air and under load) to over come this drag, generally results in a hotter running tool, and reduces bearing life.
Even placing the running tool on the paint will limit the vibration we feel because a foam pad will act as spongy shock absorber. The tool itself remains unbalanced and the same stresses mentioned above are still occurring.
I can certainly attest that this in not true. An orbital movement machine is far more dependent on efficiency than actual power draw. It`s the reason we pedal a bicycle in tiny orbits to drive the rear when in a large rotational movement. It just takes far less power input (this shouldn`t be confused with power output) and excessive draw under load (due to a lack of efficiency in the unit) will result in a nice marketing number and a much hotter design. There`s more internal drag to overcome.What I`d predict is that all the machines with the same action - 21mm throw random orbital - 15mm throw random orbital, etc. would perform exactly the same in the hands of a single skilled operator. Of course, I`d like to throw a couple of true dual action machines into the mix - forced rotation with elliptical movement - for comparison as well.
Also, the orbital movement is always circular, and never elliptical. A forced rotation, dual action polisher, actually creates a single motion pattern which repeats on the paint. The movement resembles a snake slithering in a circle.
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