Customer Reviews

Bosch 3727DEVS 3.3 Amp 6-Inch Hook-and-Loop Random-Orbit Variable-Speed Sander/Polisher with Dust Canister

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I have owned my 3727DEVS 6" sander for three years and have used it for both fine woodworking and around the house do-it-yourself projects. I have it found it to be a rugged, very well made tool that also has good balance. Indeed, it is an easy to use tool that takes the drudgery out of sanding.

It can be used for aggressive sanding with the coarse grits, such as in the prep work for painting plaster walls, or it can be used for the finish sanding of cabinetry of furniture. It performs equally well at either task.

I strongly recommend that one should also purchase the vacuum hose adapter, particularly since this sander can generate a lot of dust.

This is a solid sander that can cut with any grit you use. I bought this about 2 yrs ago to replace a 5" Bosch random orbital, the extra area saves me quite a bit of time. I have a 50' wooden yacht so this thing gets used and abused and has covered every square inch of the exterior atleast 3 times. I've also used it with finer grits (220) on inside interior and you can slow it down to what you need with the adjustment dial. The bottom hook and loop (velcro) fastener pad is strong and hasn't worn out like my last one. If you have big projects go with this sander, if you have small projects get the 5" bosch since it's theoretically easier to handle...just stick with Bosch, I've owned almost all of the others and they've been sent to davey jones locker.

The only downside I could think of is:

- most of the big home improvement stores don't carry 6" diameter paper (only 5") so you have to order online.

- I wish it came standard with an adapter to fit most shop vacs. I ended up engineering my own which leaves much to be desired.

I've had the opportunity to use a number of 5" and 6" RO sanders over the past few years and this is one I would definately buy again. Smooth, well balanced and fits my hands well. I bought mine with the vac adapter and Bosch's hose. I use it hooked to my Shop-Vac and it works very well. I can't see any dust on my bench around where I am sanding and I don't smell any either. 6" paper is now available at the box stores if you want to go that route (I prefer the Mirka available here). I like the 6" simply because it takes less time to sand an area.

Pretty much anyone who does any sort of woodwork at all needs a random orbit sander. There are, however, many different brands and features to choose from. I settled on this Bosch unit because of the features. And also because the Bosch brand is clearly very competitive.

Because I use this sander mostly for furniture, I wanted a 6" pad size as that should be easier to keep flat than a 5" size. The 6" units are more expensive and heavier than the 5", but not by much.

Another feature worth having is the use of hook and loop sanding disks. I spent a lot of years in body shops where we used spray adhesive, glue and self-stick disks. What a mess. Horrible. And I used these sanders at home for my wood projects. Believe me, the hook and loop, velcro-like, units are much better and are so easy to use that you are more likely to use the correct sanding pad rather than to just use whatever is on there.

I also wanted good dust control via a vacuum system. This tool is easy to hook up to a 1 1/4 hose with the appropriate Bosch adapter. My dust control system is set up so that the vacuum activates when the Bosch is turned on. Air is sucked through the holes in the sanding disks (I have been using the Mirka brand), through the pad and out the back port where the filter was.

That self-contained filter comes right off to expose the suction port for the vac. I have no experience with the supplied filter, so cannot comment on it. I can say that there is almost no dust at all with the vac system and that sanding is actually easier because the vacuum sucks the sander to the board and you do not have to press down so hard. Still, you should use a dust mask.

The 3727DEVS does have that variable speed feature as well as a lock switch so you don't have to work the trigger full time. This all works well.

There is no such thing as fun sanding, but this is very quiet and pleasant to use.

I did have one problem that seems to be fairly common to this and other brands in that the screw that holds the pad on can loosen. I noticed some funky sounds and vibration, shut it down and tightened the screw. That was many weeks of work ago and it has not happened again. It is suggested that you just keep an eye on that.

They do not give away Mirka quality sandpaper disks. $25+ per box and you need several different grits. So, you might plan on spending another $100 right away to stock up on that.

I use mine on furniture projects and have been pleased with the results. Sometimes I think that the very final sanding should be done by a straight-line pad sander, but so far I have not been forced to buy one of those. Recommended.

I took on a job stripping, sanding, and painting about 100 kitchen cabinet doors for a apartment property renovation. Not having the 16 scfm @ 90 psi through my compressor for an air sander and not wanting to have my hands go numb using the various electric sanders I already have, I purchased this sander on the high recommendations of others.

This is a high-quality tool and definitely relieves some of the drudgery of sanding. The 6" pad makes quick work of anything it touches. The variable speed gives you the opportunity to adjust to changing surface conditions. Dust collection through the provded filter or through a vacuum host is very efficient. And my hands aren't numb anymore.

Cons - a bit heavy to use with one hand for anything except short periods of time. It's large - smaller than a belt sander, larger than a low-end RO sander. Paper selection limited.

Considering getting rid of the two PC "buzzing bee in your hand" sanders but, being smaller, they're more useful in the tool bag. The Bosch will stay at the shop.

UPDATE - A YEAR LATER...

Still going strong and still my favorite sander. Been dropped a couple times but has never stopped working. You can buy the 6-hole, 6-inch Mirka paper here at Amazon but, if you search around other woodworking retailers, you can find additional Mirka 6-inch products (Abranet, Royal Gold) that will broaden the use of this fine sander.

Before purchasing this sander, I had a Porter-Cable single speed random orbit sander--and I had very little control. Once that thing got revving, the only way to slow it down was to flick the on-off button. I wore out two of those buttons on the P-C. A single speed is just not adequate for light touch-ups.

With variable speed, you can slow the Bosch way down just to do touch-ups without eating a hole in your wood. When you are really ready to eat wood, put it on high speed with some coarse grit, and for most applications you can say goodbye to your belt sander. I haven't used my belt sander since getting this beauty over 2 years ago. Why should I? This thing is very fast, easier to handle, and gives better results.

If you are going to run it on high speed for extended time periods, put on some anti-vibration gloves. During one project (10 tables over 4 weeks) I ended up with a bad tingling sensation in my hands that didn't lay off for about 3 weeks. Then I bought some anti-vibration gloves. These help a lot.

Some other positives: this sander REALLY holds the sandpaper. The hook-and-loop is so tight that I really wrestled pulling the paper off at first. With the P-C, I ended up replacing my hook-and-loop pad annually. In a couple of years, it would have made up the difference I should have paid in the first place for the Bosch. And the dust canister--quite an improvement over the paper bags that the previous version of this sander used (and I owned), which would tear after a while. They get more of the dust, and open up and clean rapidly. Be sure you snap them closed well after cleaning, as it is easy to think they are closed when they are not.

One should not forget the difference that the larger sanding surface makes. While the sandpaper is more expensive, it is larger. It lasts a long, long time--partly due to its size, partly due to efficient dust removal.

The extra support handle on the front of the unit makes the sander easy to handle and greatly reduces fatigue. And it can be removed when you want to get into tight spaces.

I hope I finally learn this lesson--buy a quality tool the first time, and save time, money, and fatigue in the long run. The Bosch 3727DVS is top rate.

I bought this sander about 6 months ago and have used it on several projects ranging from composite board bookshelves, to an aluminum hot tub, to an Oak enclosure for the hot tub. It has really done well on everything. I would likely use a harder pad on Aluminum if I were doing a lot of it but the OEM pad was perfect for the hardboard and Oak. The sander cuts well and is balanced well enough to produce a nice flat surface or finesse a perfectly rounded edge.

The 6" paper is harder to find than the more common 5" and you don't usually see the same kind of selection or volume discounts on it locally - although Grizzly does sell both in bulk. Hook and eye paper is a bit more expensive than sticky paper but it wears so much better, and I really like being able to use a disk half way and pull it off to use a different grit, then reuse it later.

This is definitely not a detail sander and doesn't cut like a belt sander but it was a good tradeoff for me. The front handle is removable but really doesn't stick out enough to be a problem. I had a minor problem with the detachable handle getting loose but simply removing it completely and re-installing it fixed that. The threads may have been dirty. I tried a few similar sanders before buying this one. It isn't the brute that the Milwaukee is and it isn't as petite as the Hitachi. I needed something in the middle and opted for this one and it works. My shop has open sides so dust collection isn't usually an issue but a major failing on many sanders like this is the dust collection and I have to comment that the dust collection on this thing actually works very well and doesn't get in the way. It is a good tool.

I just finished 3 hours of sanding on a 70 year old oak floor that has never been refinished. Full of pits, scratches, nail holes, splinters, old varnish ect.. and believe it or not some knuckle-head years ago even starting painting a large corner of the rooms floor with white primer. Using 80 grit paper this thing ate through the old finish and paint like a champ. After 3 hours my arms and hands feel fine, no tingling or numbness, smooth and easy one hand operation. Changing my grip on the tool to different hands and different positions during operation was seamless and comfortable, it was actually a pleasure to use this thing. As long as I emptied the hepa filter dust catcher regularly dust kick-up was minimal. This is one of the few tools I've bought that I was 100% satisfied with.

I've had this tool for several years and it really works well in comparison to my other 5" orbital sanders. It is more aggressive, vibrates about the same as the others and the extra surface area of the pad really saves time. I tend to use this sander when I need to aggressively remove material or have larger work pieces. But be warned, this sander can leave pretty hideous swirl marks if you're not careful - more so than a 5" orbital.

My gripe with this tool is the way the electrical connections are made inside the tool. After a fair amount of use, one of the crimped power connections to the field winding loosened and eventually broke loose, causing intermittent operation of the tool. After years of living with this and doing band-aid fixes, I was recently able to pull the field winding and make solder connections directly to the ends of the coil. It would seem that if they were originally connected this way it likely never would have failed.

The dust collection is good when combined with the Bosch vac adapter (purchased separately) and a shop vac - but the adapter has very flimsy tabs that will break when put to hard use or stepped on. My adapter is presently secured with electrical tape. Bosch really should have designed a round vac adapter into this tool.

Other than these issues, for the money it has been a good investment.

I replaced a 5 inch sander (another brand) with this Bosch and I am very happy with the quality of the sanding. The sander is very agressive and needs a steady hand to steer it across the surface and assure even sanding. I finish most sanding jobs in half the time as before. The only drawback to this sander is that most big box stores do not stock hook and loop 6 inch sanding pads. This is only an issue when you run out suddenly and have to wait to order more.