I took one look at the inertial sanders and said no because I couldn't sand with the bowl not spinning. I went with a Milwaukee angle drill from back when they used to be made by Sioux Tools. I did get one of the Milwaukee drills after Milwaukee started making their own. Keys to longevity with the corded drills is to run at half speed max, oh, with the slow speed drills, and never more than the weight of the drill for pressure. They are drills, and not grinders, which is pretty much what we use them for. As for the cordless drills, I tried one once. The battery would last 2 bowls or so, then would need to be recharged, which means that I would need several batteries. Just didn't like them. Still trying to figure out how to do a flex shaft from a mini lathe with forward and reverse, and have that mounted on my 'articulated arm for bowl sanding', and I have a video on that. Got the flex shaft from King Arthur tools, I think. There are several right angle drill attachments that should work...... Hand sanding, nope, just not efficient. I can get 500+ bowls from the drills before they need new bearings, and some times brushes. I did try one of the 'cheap' ones once and it had problems with the trigger after only a few bowls. I tried a pneumatic one, and it kept the compressor running non stop. The smaller Grex sanders, pneumatic, do work, and some use them, but I found they work better with the finer grits, like above 220, but not with the coarser grits. Some times I do start with 80 grit, but that depends more on the wood than anything else... They are random orbit sanders.
robo hippy