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Hitachi SP18VAH Circular Machine Polisher

This machine gets top marks!

Here's an example that could be studied in business school. Hitachi wanted to enter the US polisher/sander market a few years ago. At the time the market was dominated by DeWalt, Makita and Porter Cable. They studied the competition and conducted an extensive customer survey to determine what features users wanted. Armed with this market research, Hitachi built the SP18VA Polisher, the machine with everything.

For starters, it has a heavy-duty, 11 amp motor. That's a larger motor than either DeWalt or Makita uses, yet Hitachi packed it into a compact, 16-7/16 inch body that weighs only 6.2 pounds. That's two pounds less than the DeWalt DW849. Now two pounds doesn't sound like much, but if you spend time polishing a vertical surface like a boat hull, RV or the side of your car for five or six hours, it's the difference of going home and still being able to raise your arm enough to enjoy your favorite brew!

Hitachi wisely opted for the wrap-around, front grip preferred by professional users and started the first speed stop at 600 rpm rather than the usual 1000 rpm. This is a great feature when working on black or red finishes where you want to keep the speed down.

Like the competition, the SP18VA Polisher features "soft starting" to prevent torque jump when starting and uses electronic speed regulation to maintain a constant speed regardless of the torque load. A spindle lock permits you to quickly and easily change backing plates.

Now that you've built a machine with the size, weight, features and performance that everyone wanted, how do you entice the public to trust the new kid on the block? You give it a FIVE YEAR WARRANTY! That's five times longer than anyone in the industry!

Dial	Speed/rpm	Type of Work
1	600	Light polishing
2	1100	Normal polishing
3	1700	Heavy polishing
4	2300	Heavy compounding/light sanding
5	2900	Sanding
6	3400	Sanding

It would be nice if Hitachi printed the actual rpm on the speed dial. If this is your only polisher, it's probably not a big deal but if you use various machines it's easy to forget what speed the numbers represent.

The Hook and Loop Backing Plate that comes with the polisher, like the Makita 9227, is a 6-1/2 inch backing plate which is great for sanding but is non-standard for foam polishing pads. If you are working on a boat or RV, we prefer to use 8-1/2 inch pads which self-center on a 7 inch backing plate. You can use our 8-1/2 inch, CCS Technology, High-gloss Pads with this 6-1/2 inch backing plate but you have to be careful to center the pad on the backing plate or you'll get some polishing "wobble". For cars, we prefer to use 6-1/2 inch or 7-1/2 inch foam pads which require a 6 inch backing plate. You CANNOT use our 7-1/2 inch pads with the 6-1/2 inch backing plate that comes with this machine. You can use our 6-1/2 inch, CCS Technology and 6-1/2 inch Professional Flat Pads with the 6-1/2 inch backing plate but the backing plate extends to the edge of the pad. You must be very careful working near adjacent panels. If you are buying this polisher primarily to polish cars or trucks, consider buying a 6 Inch Flexible Backing Plate (Our FBP-6C listed below). This would allow you to use our 7-1/2 inch, CCS Technology High-gloss Pads and/or any of our 6-1/2 inch pads. Or, get a 7 inch Flexible Backing Plate (Our FBP-7C listed below) and use our 8-1/2 inch, CCS Technology, High-gloss Pads if you are working mostly on boats or RV's.

If you already have a dual-action machine and want to step-up to a professional circular polisher, we can't think of a better choice than the Hitachi SP18VA.

6 inch, Flexible Backing Plate for Circular Polishers

(For attaching foam and wool pads to circular machine polishers)

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