I lost the oldest member of my power tool family yesterday while cleaning up the plane blades. My orbital sander started cutting out and there was an unwelcome burning smell, so I knew the end had come.
It was a gift from my parents when I was building a room full of bookshelves about 8 years ago, and was probably only $15-$20, so it’s paid for itself many times over. I went out and replaced it with another cheap sander to finish what I was doing, but I havn’t been able to bring myself to throw it in the bin yet.
I know it has to go there, it’s either not working properly or worse, unsafe, which are both good reasons for it not to clutter up my workshop any longer, but it seems sad that it ends up there amongst the rest of the waste. All I can hope is that there’s some place in the sky where they go when they die, somewhere with plenty of fresh sandpaper and a good stable power supply.
Andrew's Woodwork Blog 