Sorry I'm probably clogging up the boards with a bunch of my posts in my seemingly never ending quest to make this end grain cutting board without the traditional tools one would use to make a cutting board.
The refurbished sander had definitely been used before. I wonder what this green dust is from:

?
I found it quite hard to change from the soft pad to the hard pad. I was actually winded afterwards. I guess that shows how out of shape I am.
I noticed 2 major things:
It's incredibly powerful. I probably should have listened to others and tried it out in person before buying. I didn't know how tiring it would be to try to hold on.
It made very quick work smoothing out the side of the cutting board that I had planed with the router using 60 grit paper and the hard pad. Unfortunately, the cutting board still rocks.
Oh yeah there's basically no dust, which is amazing. I know everyone always talks about how good the dust collection is, but it's really different when you experience it first hand in person.