CRAFTSMANOrbital Sander, 5 inch, 12,000 OPM, 3 Amp, Corded (CMEW231)

The CRAFTSMAN CMEW231 orbital sander delivers excellent performance with its 3-amp motor and 12,000 OPM speed. It’s powerful enough for tough jobs and leaves a smooth finish. Comfortable grip, solid build, and easy to use. The dust bag works okay, but hooking it to a shop vac is better for big jobs. Great value for the price.

So far, this sander has done a good job for me. The dust collector does a good job at limiting the amount of dust that is generated by sanding.

I am an avid garage woodworker. I needed to replace an older Porter Cable sander. After doing online research I discovered that the Craftsman sander and the Dewalt sanders are one in the same. I chose the Craftsman because of the price difference. The sander works as expected. It has more power than my old sander. The added power makes for faster sanding between grits. The dust collection using the included bag works as well as any. Connecting the sander to a standard vacuum will require the use of the dewalt adaptor also sold on Amazon. Nothing negative to say about this simple working tool. I am happy with my choice and would recommend this to others.

I've been using this sander for over a year and a half now, and for the money this is one of the best value tools around.As others have mentioned, it's basically a perfect copycat of the yellow brand tool. It has some weight to it, and its relatively comfortable to use for a long time.The dust collection on this is great, IF you are using a shopvac or other dust collection system. The bags barely do anything, but that's the case with almost any tool out there. Don't expect passive dust collection to work wonders.Pros:InexpensiveSands well, no scratches left on surfaceEasy to change paperActive dust collection leaves barely any sawdust on the surfaceCopy of the more expensive yellow toolCons:Dust collection port is a weird size, but just grab a rubber coupling with a pipe clamp and you'll be in businessCan get a bit tiresome to hold after sanding for a long period of time.Produces a lot of exhaust air as most random orbit sanders do, can blow around any loose particles around your shop.Lastly, don't bother with a cordless. If you're running cordless you'll have to hook up to a shopvac anyways for the dust collection, so the cordless feature is then moot. I just have a dust extractor that turns on whenever I power the tool on.

Works well on our 2x4 boards that were untreated. Wish it had a shop vac rubber band to attach it to. We used duct tape which I really hate doing but the shop vac collected most of the shavings.

Good removal, vibration not too bad, sticky pad is very sticky, and the exhaust port fits my shop vac with a bit of duct tape for no dust

Read a lot of professional woodworkers claiming this to be a great value sander for beginners.The tools seems to have plenty of power and allows for sanding with some speed.I haven’t done much sanding with it yet but the little I have the dust collection seems pretty good.

I read a number of review for random orbit sanders, and decided I'd prefer the DeWalt; many of the other highly rated brands had patterns of problems in the reviews, and I wanted the 3 amp unit. I saved the DeWalt to a list, but when the time came to buy, it was not to be found. Not available online, not in stock in any local stores. Not sure why, but it had disappeared.Looking at reviews again, I discovered that this unit appeared to be the same product as the DeWalt (the version without speed control, which wasn't essential for my application), sold under the Craftsman brand. It performs well, does exactly what I want; appears to be a quality tool, plus a bit of nostalga factor with Craftsman. And it was somewhat cheaper.And all that said - the consistant issue with this unit mentioned in reviews was it doesn't connect to a 1 1/4 vacuum hose. It just took a moment to wrap a couple good sized rubber bands round the hose to my shopvac and insert it into the sander. It holds in place and creates an adequate seal. It's easily solved without time or expense.