Side by Side Comparison of: Hitachi vs Black & Decker

Arrived on time, perfect. Tried it out and it performed flawlessly. Will update later if there are problems.

I love this sander. Should hold up as well as my 25 year old Makita.

Works as expected. Very happy.

Great sander with excellent power!

Very impressed! I first bought a porter cable one and it was horrible so I returned it. It was actually cheaper than the porter cable one.

Great sander for the price and does what I need to do!

This thing is going to save my arms and my time, and B&D is a name you can trust for quality products/service. I'm very happy with my purchase.

Thanks. He enjoyed it and will be using it for side jobs. Now he doesn't have to borrow one all the time.

Suprise in performance and durability. Great product.

I use it to shave edges for a better fit. It is easy to use just the point of the sander to shave small variances.

Excellent tool for a bargain price (I bought refurbished).The auto centering feature works exactly as advertised, completely removing that frustrating battle which I fought continually with my previous belt sander. It is not well suited to use upside down clamped to a bench as the top of the unit is rounded, no flat surface. I think the manual actually says not to use it this way explicitly. However the handle is ergonomic and I was easily able to hold it and use the small protruding belt surface to do fine shaping of some metal parts without wrist fatigue.

So I've been using this for a bit now. I haven't done anything serious with it, except for shaving off about 1/3" off some pine table legs. This little guy has done everything I've asked for thus far, I do see the small issues that other people have been talking about, but they're either using the wrong tool for the wrong job OR the're expecting too much out of a piddly little sander like this. Put it this way, it will take the paint/stain/first layer off of paint easily depending on what type of paper you use no problem. Also, I have seen no automatic tracking issues with the belt. So far so good, but if it breaks after sanding my entire house, I'll be sure to complain!Update-- I recently shaved about an inch off of 4 oak legs (lengthwise) in order to level two pieces of 2x4. It took me over an hour with this thing running full blast the entire time. I'm not sure why people are complaining, but this thing rocks.

works well

Belt tends to slide at higher settings. Not well balanced but gets the job done.

Good value, fairly easy starting, a little heavy. But works well

Purchased this tool to strip several layers of paint off an old, 400 sq. ft. deck. The sander performed admirably even when pushed hard for several hours of continuous work. I did not find the tool to be overly heavy or unbalanced.

This is a fairly heavy and well built sander, weighing in at around 9 pounds. The bag collects most of the dust, but not all. The belt tracks true, no wandering. Once the belt is installed, set the tracking and it stays set. I've noticed some uneven contact with the surface, but I'm using it overhead, sanding some house siding, so the issue may be the way I'm holding the machine over my head. I haven't tried the sander on a flat level surface. The best part of this machine is the belt installation lever. Pull the lever back, install the belt, move the lever forward. Very simple, quick, and easy. Very nice!

Bought to continue project..My Dewalt was down,My Bosch was down,..My wives Skil was a lightweight toy..Dewalt is VERY VERY heavy..great if on flat surface..BUT not so great on anything else.Sent out for $99 refurb.Still out.Bosch suffers switch problems,$30 replaced twice BUT still a great lightweight unit..I finally said put in a toggle swith dummy..which I did, but after years of heavy use finally died.I will replace when I can get a refurb unit at a price.Picked up wives 3x18 Skil toy..Suprised myself..will get one to use on corners, touchup spots., very light easy to handle. But will not do heavy work for 4-5 hours.The Hitachi is light,and powerful, only thing I would improve is the tension release handle which is not for large fingers. BUT a great running tool. A keeper.

Can't speak on longevity but nice sander for the cost

Works well. Belt rides true, no movement at all. Has plenty of power to sand very well and will easily drive 24 grit belts. Id recommend it for small areas and edge work where a heavy 4x24 pro sander is heavy to handle.

I bought this for my husband, and he really likes it! It's a great value!UPDATE: My husband used it today, and the belt burned up. It was cheaper to replace it, than to buy very many belts. Sad! I don't recommed it unless you're not going to use it very often!

Light but powerful. Easy to use. Belt installs quickly and remains on the roller. The only problem is the sanding bag, which is poorly designed and does not remain on the sander when in use.

Only problem is that the anchor for the collection bag broke. But otherwise it sands great.

I like the smaller nose, able to get closer to an edge with it. Appears to overheat and briefly shutdown when doing long sanding jobs. "Lock on" button hard to reach, it is recessed. May be a safety factor, but still a pain to reach when running. Bottom plate does not seem to be perfectly flat, when sanding large previously painted panels to rough them up for repainting, there is an area that is completely sanded out from some point in the middle of the plate Does well for rough material removal and medium grit sanding, I'm not as pleased when using "fine" papers because of this.

People are quite right about getting an electrical shock occasionally. The problem is with the design. The combination of a plastic outer body and insulated grip handles causes static electricity to build up. Use the machine for a few minutes then ground the left side plastic cover. You will see a spark jump about 10mm. As far as I can tell the only way to safely discharge the machine is to hand it to your wife.. If she makes this sound "Aghhh" you know it has been discharged and can be considered safe..Ok so I jest, The fact is, static electricity is not as dangerous as an internal breakdown of insulation but it does hurt and is very annoying.Perhaps one thing you might consider though is the potential of the spark to ignite solvent fumes. Hard to believe Hitachi are just ignoring the problem. Shame on them.

I am not that happy with this, the belt keeps needing adjusted, the rollers look used and I believe this unit is a return.

BELT SETTING WILL NOT HOLD

I can't keep the sanding roll on track...I have to adjust every few minutes otherwise the paper will start shredding.The dust collector works fantastic,This is the only belt sanding I've ever owned, so I don't have anything to compare, or otherwise recomend

After 5 hours of use on one big project here is my input... The tool works, it sands, it is fast, it is powerful, the variable speed is useful, all the things you expect from this sort of tool However, the tool requires a lot of work. The belt tracking changes as the tool heats from use so you have to constantly adjust the tracking. When a belt breaks or tears pieces seem to lodge in the far back edge of the drive wheel which can take a very long time to clear, dig, pull, etc. Of the time I used the tool, about 5 hours, 30% was spent adjusting, clearing, futzing with the tool itself.I am not returning this tool, but would not buy it again.

sturdy, dust collection works well but UNBALANCED, other similar sized sanders are balanced, this one leans to the left causing you to have to constantly compensate or dig some grooves. Spend a little more and get the porter cable.

Doesn't really sand evenly. If you were to only sand the same spot and not move it, most of the area wouldn't get sanded. But it is light.

Works ok for the price.

Yes for little work

As others have written, the belt slips under heavy use.Fine for the price, but just that. If you really need something to go to town with, go up a couple of price points. This is strictly a honey-do lightweight sander.

Tried it for a test run as soon as I got it and the belt kept slipping off. After taking a good look of liver it, I realized that who ever put this together put the front roller on wrong (idiot). After a quick fix I got it working and the belt no longer slips off. Over all fairly decent product.

This is a pretty good sander for the Money it costs. Not a professional grade but good for occasional use

Roller started wobbling within an hour of use. Shaft size should be bigger.

The sander is top heavy you let go it falls over

Bought it for a gift for my husband. Opened on his birthday and the front roller has definite appearances of being used.

worked great for about 5 hours and then broke. the front wheel wouldn't stay in place, it was latched down but would move around anyways. So the sand paper kept coming off, or the back wheel would spin and the paper wouldn't move. I would have expected more durable from Hitachi.

I bought this to replace my 25 yr old Craftsman that wore out the brushes which are no longer availale. I wanted one of equal quality. It has some good points.Pros:Pretty heavy dutybelt installation and centeringspeed controlrubber grip handlesCons:dust bag doesn't seal welllopsided balance as motor hangs over the belt on the left side so you must hold it to allow even sanding on the rightthe clear window is pretty worthless

It stopped collecting dust after about one year. I have not tried to go through the hassle of warranty yet. In the meantime it is unusable unless hooked up to a vacumn/dust collector. Before it crapped out I was happy with it!Now months later..I had managed to fix the dust extraction for a while. Then the tracking crapped out so that the belt would not stay centered. So, being a sucker for punishment I bought another one when this one eventually crapped out on me. The new one is working ok but the dust bag gave out day one. The stitching went on it so it blows dust all over the user. The original one and this new one also has dust blow out where the circle clip attaches it to the unit. I don't expect 100% dust control but the dust bags on these units are abad design. I tried to order a new one on amazon but it seems they don't offer a dust bag for this model!!!! I have other Hitachi tools and they perform pretty good most of the time but I'm not having much luck with this sander. I tried contacting customer service at one point but its all just too time consuming to deal with.

Easily rocks side to side since its only 3 inches wide. Has a lip on edge of the roller so cannot use on wide boards. I wish I hadn't bought this item.

grippy roller covering disintegrated on first use. Still works, but shreds belts quickly now. Maybe suitable for very light work, but this style is made for heavy abrasion, not finish work.

To be fair, this device may have been well unprepared for the task I had planned for it. I was looking to sand down a deck patio no larger than 15'X10'. For a weekend's worth of worth, I figured this Black & Decker device would suffice, but I was wrong.A little more than halfway through, all seemed to be going just fine. However, at one point I noticed that there seemed to be resistance as I was moving along, plank by plank. Upon inspecting the sander's belt area, I noticed that the front caster that spins freely to allow the belt to rotate had literally welded itself stationary with a bead of melted plastic that had adhered to the sander assembly. This prevented the caster from being able to move; thus, increased resistance on the sander belt and, in turn, rendering this sander broke.I am highly disappointed in this product as it halted my project and forced to me create more time and expense for a project that, in my belief, was a minor job. For these reasons, I do not recommend this product to anyone whose project extends beyond the occasional, basic sanding in the garage workshop.

I bought this based upon reading some other reviews of this and other brands. I needed another belt sander, since my Craftsman one finally bit the dust after a few years of satisfactory service. The BR318 seemed to fit my needs, and I was intrigued by the automatic tracking feature. I ended up with a machine that had okay as far as belt tracking went, but while using it I noticed that the belt was prone to touching the plastic on the leading corners. Further, the electric cord was constantly in the way. During an extended period of use, that cord got caught up in the belt, and the unit quit. Fortunately I was able to get it fixed, as the only damage was the cord being sanded through, causing a short. Now I have a short cord, but serviceable. I'll use this unit until it fails, but will look for another brand next time.

Worked fine now it sends out a shock when turned on.. Not sure why it's doing this as everything in the shop is perfect.

The belt tracking has to be constantly adjusted. Often the belt slid right off the pulley when I waited too long to adjust it. The rubber sleeve on the drive pulley also slid off. When I slid it back on and turned the machine on it slid right off again. I can not find where to order a new rubber sleeve. It does not even show on the parts list. I did not even get through two days of sanding the deck. I would not buy this one again nor recommend it.

Works fine, for sanding, but also provides electro shock therapy while using.VERY DANGEROUS!!!! You literally see sparks coming off the motor and if you touch metal parts it will shock you. Amazon will not let me return it....lets see what Hitachi does.

I got repeated;y shocked using this sander. I assumed there was a wiring flaw, so returned the first one. I then ordered another one, but this one also shocked me. That suggested it was a design problem of some kind. I called Hitachi, but they were not helpful. I tried using it again, but got shocked again, so I returned the second one. The shocks always came from the trigger release button or the trigger (on-switch) itself. Not sure why this happened, but it was no fun!

I never write reviews... Right out of the box I was disappointed to see the one side of the sander was plastic not aluminum like it appeared in the pictures. PLASTIC! Also disappointed to discover there was not a storage bag (my bad for not noticing in the write-up). Ultimately, I sent if back because after less then 30 min of light use the machine unexplicably died on me. I was sanding pine lightly and motor keeps running and the belt stops turning. I was furious because I had several projects in the queue. Sent it back and got something I know will work well (Makita). I do not recommend this tool...

Bought this hoping for a quieter tool. Maybe the one that was delivered was defective, but it was sent back immediately because the adjusting the belt was useless. No matter what I did - including changing the sanding belt, testing many settings, etc. - the belt slid all over the place and created gouges in the material. Went back to the brand I used before. Customer service and refund was prompt.

Front roller is made of plastic. When you sand something it creates friction, creating heat, which melted the front roller! Then the belt slipped to one side causing a jam in the machine. Making the beltsander unusable for any future use!

This sander, and it's 3x21" brother, are frought with basic design problems - which are going to cause unnecessary & troublesome maintenance of the sander. After noticing how it leaves more sawdust than it captures in the bag I decided to open it and see if I could figure out WHY... sadly, I discovered it lodged a LOT of sawdust inside the unit body too. My advice, watch some YouTube videos on the maintenance of this sander, and others FIRST!

I bought a piece of s----- sander that looked really nice in pics. Amazon wants 20% to return it. I bought 10 belts from this guy to go with the sander. I ask him if I could sent the belts back since I was returning the sander, NOTHING. Using www.Walmart.com and no problem running a few miles to return things

When I start the sander, the belt immediately wanders right off the wheels. There is no way to adjust it. Tried several times, and each time the belt wanders off. Useless. Returned it.

I was excited to have this sander for light duty honey-do projects. It was very easy to just pull out of the box and start sanding (after reading the instructions, of course.) Within a few minutes (less than 10) of use on a piece of wood, I noticed a tar-like substance on the belt. When it cooled and I removed the belt, I was able to chip the hardened substance off of the belt with some effort. I rotated the belt around for a minute to see if the problem recurred, and to establish if the concern was caused by the belt or the sander. The same thing happened a second time- a 3/8" strip of melted something (black plastic?) appeared on the handle side of the belt. I called Black and Decker, and they are sending me a replacement unit. They said that this is not a known problem with this model. After reading other reviews of this product I have concerns that I will be dissatisfied with the replacement, but will post an updated review if my impression of the sander changes.

I bought this for light duty sanding for home improvement projects. Turns out it's no good. The belts walk about 1/4 inch to 1/2 inch, eating up the belt as they go. The belt gets shredded, and I started over with a new belt. Same thing.I went through about 6 belts in just a few minutes and finally gave up. The cost saving of this unit will be offset by the number of ruined belts you'll need to buy to finish your job. Not to mention the time spent changing belts.Just a poor quality tool. Lightweight plastic and no belt adjustment.