You need to be able to read the tea leaves with Ryobi, I have long since concluded, unless you have access to an employee of the company. Which I don't.
So here we have the evidence: The sander is no longer on the HD website (a correspondent here insists it is, but every time I visit, it's shown as unavailable online); I had to search all over Southern California (well, southeast L.A. County) to find one; and, the tool guy @ Cerritos HD told me that it hasn't been in stock for three months.
From that scanty set of facts I infer that once again Ryobi is cutting off the top of a line (like the 3100) and for reasons that I cannot fathom.
UNLESS:
So here we have the evidence: The sander is no longer on the HD website (a correspondent here insists it is, but every time I visit, it's shown as unavailable online); I had to search all over Southern California (well, southeast L.A. County) to find one; and, the tool guy @ Cerritos HD told me that it hasn't been in stock for three months.
From that scanty set of facts I infer that once again Ryobi is cutting off the top of a line (like the 3100) and for reasons that I cannot fathom.
UNLESS:
- since Ryobi sold, the new parent has but little interest in competing with its own much more expensive (and contractor-quality, AFAIK) machinery and only bought Ryobi to relieve the market in its own core area; or,
- they intend to intro a green (no, no, Li-ion, not "environmental") version. Which I find pretty incredible, since:
sanders are often used for hours and hours; and
the BE321VS has a pretty powerful motor, both of which make it in my mind unsuitable for battery power; and
a sander that size is heavy enough without the addition of a battery, even a lithium ion one,
making it less suited for battery power than I believe they can overcome.
the BE321VS has a pretty powerful motor, both of which make it in my mind unsuitable for battery power; and
a sander that size is heavy enough without the addition of a battery, even a lithium ion one,
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