Looking for recommendations for a HEAVIER DUTY disc sander

Here's my take.... make of it what you will.

A grinder will be the fastest. Of all, I far & away prefer Metabo's variable speed machines. They're extra-powerful, handle well & run reliably & trouble-free for many years.

These all have the WEV prefix in the model designation. I'd recommend either the WEV 15-150 Quick HT or the 17-125 Quick Inox. These both have similar LOWER speeds of 2000-7600 RPM, which is just about ideal for sanding. Some sanding tasks take a lot of power (torque actually) as the heavily loaded coarser pads will drag on thicker, older multi-painted surfaces. A slower pad speed, coupled with a high MOTOR speed aids cooling & longevity, reducing the risk of overheating the fields & windings.

My best results have been sanding heavily coated weatherboards with a coarse disc. The old paint quickly "gunks up" the grit on the disc, & the resultant friction will heat the old paint up to melting point, removing multiple coatings with remarkable rapidity & surprisingly little actual abrasion to the timber underneath. The loaded pad will more "polish" the underlying weatherboards than abrade them!

It's gonna be messy: old melted paint residues will be flung everywhere by centrifugal force, but the lower speed helps. One of these will too:
www.metabo.com/com/en/accessories/cutting-grinding/further-accessories-for-angle-grinders/extraction-hoods/grinding-extraction-hood-ged-125-626732000.html

But still, don't expect anything even approaching Mirka-like dust & swarf extraction. Otherwise you'll be extremely disappointed.

One thing I'm perhaps a little concerned with. Whilst a high quality variable speed mini-grinder is probably the most used (and useful) tool I own (I have 3 of them, all Metabo, all V/S from 900-1550W), they won't be suitable for hard (or any other type of) plaster. They're just too aggressive, too powerful, & too messy.

What they're absolutely fantastic for is as a general purpose, super-duty tool for using with Arbortech Tuffcut blades (floorboard penetrations, old shuttering, dust, stone & nail-contaminated timbers etc.), A/tech TCT Woodcarving discs & Turbo planing/dishing discs (for all those weird jobs, freeform carving & furniture making), paint-stripping, derusting & tool sharpening (mower & garden shredder blades etc.) with flap-discs, concrete cutting, grinding & polishing with diamonds, metal cutting with dedicated TCT sawblades & thin 1mm discs & even on rare occasions actual metal grinding & polishing.

A V/S grinder allows all these tasks, with a selected speed ideally suited to them all. Mid speed allows an ideal compromise between power, speed of work accomplished & motor cooling. A single speed grinder would be way too fast for almost all of the above tasks.

I'd only ever choose one of these abovementioned 2 grinders as they're the only ones with a limited max speed to allow safe grinding with 150mm discs. I bought a huge job-lot of this rare size dirt cheap; maybe 2 or 3 lifetimes' supply! Diameters of 150mm/6" cannot be safely used at speeds > 10K RPM! Standard "WEV" Metabo grinders usually max out at 10.5-11 K, & I'm not tempting fate, nor breaking any OH&S laws in such a cavalier & irresponsible manner either! Ever had a grinding disc break or shatter? It's potentially lethal. The greater centrifugal force of higher rotational speed is exponentially even more risky.

For indoor plaster work maybe Mirka's 150mm 8mm DEROS Rando might suit you more? It's going to be 60% more aggressive than their 5mm iteration, in fact it's not far behind a RO150 Rotex in rotary mode in regard to sanding speed, even if the pad size is only some half the surface area of a 200mm disc equivalent. You still have the use of your pre-existing Abranet stock, a significantly faster operating speed, plus all the other operating benefits Mirka provides: lightweight, energy efficiency, superior extraction, ergonomics etc.

Sure a Giraffe-type sander would be more efficient, but it's really just a beautifully designed dedicated plaster sander that's all-but useless in any other role.

I've disposed of almost all my alternative sanders now, mostly Festool, with the exception of a couple of Bosch mini-deltas, a pair of Metabo 80mm Randos & a big Festool/HolzHer Belt sander. In fact, apart from these more specialist sanders (& of course my trio of Metabo mini-grinders) My 2 DEROS & 2 DEOS sanders ideally fulfil easily 95% odd of my sanding requirements.

These have replaced: 2 LS 130s Duplex linear sanders with a swathe of profiled bases, RO 150 & 90 DX Rotexes, Deltex mini-delta, RS1 CQ & RS 3E 1/2 & 1/3 sheet Orbitals & all their many assorted predecessors used over the last half a century.

Given the inherent superiority of Mirka's sanding solutions, I doubt that I'll need to buy another sander again. Ever.

Hope this helps more than it confuses. Ask me anything.

The problem with belt sanders is they clog so damn rapidly, unfortunately. Other than that, I've got time for them - especially Makita's variable-speed model.

I'd suggest the Fein sander you've linked will actually be a far superior sander. It' dedicated to the task, having a near-ideal set of (much lower) variable speeds than more "conventional V/S grinders.

But it'd be useless for all the variety of alternative roles one usually presses a grinder into, such as those I've outlined above.

The Eibenstock I'm sure is also a damn fine machine. I've never seen one used as a paint planer, but I'm sure that it would be effective in that role. Trouble is, the extremely hard but brittle Tungsten Carbide tooth's edges will chip all-too readily when striking nails & embedded grit etc. Replacing the entire disc as a consequence of hitting something hard (easy to do when it's covered in concealing layers of paint) will get expensive.

Other dedicated paint planers (such as Metabo's LF724) use 4-sided replaceable blades which I suspect will be much more economical in the longer term. The Eibenstock's princilple advantage is the interchangeable diamond head for harder substrates. I once saw an epoxy floor contractor using one for removing residual carpet adhesive from an old slab. These "planers" have dedicated heads set into a fixed surround designed specifically to retain substrate flatness. Depth of cut is preset extremely accurately, but again it's a fairly specialised machine that's ideally suited to its primary task, but again fairly useless for anything else.

The contractor was a bit frustrated with the tool. Way too small for the expanse of flooring he was processing: he ended up using it on the edges, corners, nooks & crannies & arrived the next Monday with a much larger machine with a big single rotating head & a pair of wheels at the rear. He could use this whilst standing (a massive comfort advantage I suspect) & processed the whole remaining floor in just an hour or 2. What this machine was I haven't a clue, but I assume it too was diamond impregnated & probably exponentially more expensive.

There's no way any ROS will ever be the equal in speed of abrasion of a Rotex type tool. My older (Gen 2) Ro 150 E was much faster in RO mode than my 8mm DEROS is. But the other advantages of Mirka's tool: weight, handling, extraction, ergonomics, comfort & vibration suppression nevertheless give it an advantageous edge in my hands anyway.

My Rotex was a big, heavy, relatively powerful machine (500W I think, but the latest version is more powerful again), but also somewhat compromised in operation. The offset "angle grinder" format made delicate handling less easy. It's fairly difficult to keep the rotating head correctly aligned at all times. It can get a little unruly at times, but was actually infinitely superior to the truly awful RO90 in this regard. The latest Rotex 150's pad now uses bayonet-type fixing, meaning that it can only use OEM pads & papers. I hate this. They're expensive & now difficult for me to source in a timely fashion. Since my local repair shop was "sacked" by the importer, I have an inconvenient & time wasting delay in sourcing even the most basic of repairs, servicing, accessories &or consumables.

The older Rotex at least uses more "standard" 8mm grub-screw pad fixing, meaning that I had access to a whole host of alternative aftermarket software from a variety of sources. I'll agree that my (albeit old-style) Festo/ol hard pad was an excellent addition to the Rotex. It in particular made flattening & edging much more straightforward whilst dramatically reducing rounding-over tendencies. The later model Rotex bayonet pad fixing loosens over time. One colleague I know has in frustration actually GLUED his Rotex bayonet pad in place to prevent it from repeatedly falling off, obviously even before the velcro hooks wore out.

I'm an unabashed Metabo fanboy (in quite a few tool types) simply due to their quality, reliability, easy & timely access to service & repair, interchangeability of software & the 3-year warranty. As with just about any alternative manufacturer they have their particular specialities, but just like all the alternative brands they unfortunately make some dogs too.

Nothing new here. But I've been refining my own tool arsenal for decades now & consider most of what I now use to be approaching some sort of personal ideal. Metabo's particular specialty has always been their grinders & grinder-formatted tools: paint planer, concrete renovators, steel bevelling grinders etc. etc. The biggest & in general best & overall most versatile collection available from any manufacturer: there's over a hundred different models!

As the "core" of the Cordless Alliance team of German manufacturers, perhaps at least some of Metabo's cordless tools could also be considered "world class" too. Some of them, unfortunately, are nothing but rubbish. But in the product niches where Metabo fails miserably (eg. cordless saws) another Alliance member takes up the slack. Whilst nowhere near having the extensive breadth or rivals at Makita (who have introduced a new 36v battery platform) or Milwaukee with their enormous range of 18 & 72 volt cordless solutions, the Alliance collectively seems to nevertheless preserve at least a modicum of a quality edge. Using the collective expertise of a select group of specialist German manufacturers.

Only you really know what your particular needs, budget & other parameters are for selecting the most appropriate aids for the tasks you wish to perform. I & others on this forum can only make experientially-based recommendations that may or may not be at all appropriate for our own personal circumstances.