Review: Dewalt DWE6421 Random Orbit Sander

The Dewalt DWE6421 random orbit sander is a solid performing, low profile sander that can potentially reach into tighter spaces than some other similar sanders. Let’s take a closer look a this one.

Sanding Power & Motor

This orbit sander has pretty good sanding power for it’s size. It has a 3 amp motor that runs at 12,000 OPM. This is a single speed sander and there in no variable speed option. The speed is pretty fast and can make pretty quick work of softer materials, and some find it to be almost too fast for a single speed sander.

This sander is powerful enough and suitable for sanding a wide range of materials such as wood, plastic and metals. The random orbit action keeps the sanding surfaces smooth and without the circular grain patterns some orbit sanders can leave behind.

Handheld Design

This sander has rubber grips in all the right spots and it’s designed to feel very comfortable in your hands. Keeping a good grip on an orbit sander is very important and there’s no negatives here. The power cord manages to stay mostly out of the way and doesn’t feel awkward during use. The smaller vertical profile of the sander helps to get into smaller spots, which can come in handy if your projects require.

Sanding Pad

This sander has a 5 inch hook and loop pad that will hold any 5 inch hook and loop pad with 8 dust collection holes. This is a pretty standard size and there are many options for sanding pads available out there. Some people say the sanding pad doesn’t hold very well if it gets dirty with sawdust, but works fine again after cleaning.

We also would like to mention that there is an almost identical version of this sander that uses a PSA pad (adhesive) rather than the hook and loop pad, which is the DWE6420 random orbit sander. If you like the look of this sander but prefer PSA pads over hook and loop, take a look at that version.

Dust Collection

This one of the more important aspects of a sander, since they can produce a lot of dust. How does this sander perform in that department?

The dust collection bag that comes with the sander kit doesn’t exactly impress people who own this sander. People have issues with keeping it properly attached during use and they find that a lot of dust just doesn’t get collected very well. The bag is also small and needs to be emptied often for anything but smaller jobs. So the dust collection bag isn’t really winning anybody over with this sander.

It works much better to hook this up to a dust collector or a vacuum, and if you go this route you’ll get much better results. The dust port on this sander works directly with the DWV010 and DWV012 dust collectors from Dewalt. There is also the DWV9000 Universal Quick Connector which will allow you to connect this sander to 1-1/4 inch vacuum hoses.

Build Quality

This is a fairly well built tool and it feels like it has a little more plastic and rubber going on than some other power tools from Dewalt. That is mostly due to design since sanders don’t need to have a lot of structural metal framing to do their job and are instead trying to be lighter and more easier to grip and handle. This sander feels lightweight at 2.9 lbs. There is pretty good effort put into the design to keep problematic dust from building up in undesirable spots. Overall, the build quality is good but it does feel a little less robust than some other sanders.

Included Accessories

This sander comes in a kit that includes a dust bag and a storage bag. The sander can also be purchased as a bare tool.

• Dust Bag

Other Available Accessories

Dewalt offers some accessories to expand the capabilities of this router, which need to be purchased separately. There’s may also be kits or packages that include these accessories. Here’s what’s available.

Dewalt DWV012 Dust Extractor

Setup & Assembly

This sander is very easy to setup and start using. We recommend to read through the manual so you don’t miss out on any of the small details for use and maintenance. But otherwise this is about as close as you can get to being able to just pull a tool out of the box and start using it right away.

Warranty

Dewalt offers a 3 year warranty on defective parts or workmanship. They also include a 1 year free service contract and a 90 day money back guarantee. This is good enough to help you out if you have quality control issues in that first year of use.