Im lookimng to order a festool ro15 today mainly for the dust extraction as when im doing big 14’ boards i make alot of dust! (inless there is a cheaper as good option) and thinking it may be worth geting a dedicated vacuum to use with it so it does the auto switch of thing however there is a good few to choose from. Can any one make any recomendations and if there is any type of different filter i should be getting? allso any outher parts that i would need to order at the same time to get up and running?
i have just called a few places to find out a bit more and from what im gatering the ct range of dust extractors are basicaly just normal vacuums were as the ctl have proper fillters in them to get rid of the nasties so will defantly go that route. Im thinking just for sanding i could get away with quite small so probably the midi as it is cheaper than the mini were im looking at the moment.
Got myself one of these. It does the job for sanding and not creating a big mess, and it’s cheap. http://www.dewalt.com/tools/woodworking-sanders-random-orbital-sanders-dwe6401ds.aspx What I like about the Festool is that it is both rotary and random orbital. You can be agressive in the rotary mode then go to orbital for finer work. It does a better job of sucking up the particles than the Dewalt, but I’m cheap.
I use a 16 gallon shop vac from Sears and I use a bag inside to keep the filter cleaner. Otherwise, you’ll need to clean the filter often.
I have a belt sander, orbital sander, planer and the rotary sander with the same vac attachment end, so I just plug in the tool I’m using to the hose which hangs down above the racks. My big 7" sander doesn’t have a vac attachment.
thanks for the warning about the bags, i have found some ziped ones so they can be re used and festool do a reusable one allso all be it almost half the cost of the machine! i will only be using it for sanding hot coats ect so there wont be large quantites of foam ect.
From what i read i got the impresion that they were as good or if not more efficient and sanding than a normal rotary sander ( at present i use a dewalt sander polisher with 7" pads and indasa paper) is this not the case?
My experience, rotary disk sanders will always be more agressive than a orbital or random orbital sander. RO is more agressive than orbital. The RO sanders with vacuum attachments make a lot less of a mess. The rotary sander will throw dust out when you are not sanding flat.
The Festool has vents in the pad so it sucks up the dust differently than the sanders with an attachment that sucks dust from the outside of the pad. The Dewalt sucks dust up from the outside of the pad. You can buy an attachment for the large 7" sanders that will do the same, but I found that it’s hard to see the pad with those. I like to see the edge of the pad where it touches the board. Another thing about the Festool is that you can get a variety of pads so you can have very hard to soft pads anf they are quick change, so you can do a lot with a single unit. It just cost a lot, but it’s a good tool. I’d get the biggest diameter version if I was serious about getting it. Add the Dust Deputy between the vacuum and sander and you can cut down on the amount of dust going into the bag. The dust deputy is really good when you are shaping and want to avoid filling your vacuum with all that foam. It’s transparent, so you can see it getting full and clear it before the hose gets clogged from a full vacuum.
I have just been watching this video that shows the two setings quite well, i didnt realise both setings have a orbit to them ( i was under the impreshion one was just rotery and the other had a orbit)
Get the whole festool set up with the biggest vac and largest width hose you can afford(no need for fancy hepa stuff). I would even suggest save until you could get the biggest vac and widest hose. The Reusable bag is a must. I empty about 5 gallons per week of wood/resin dust from mine for the past 8 years. I have never had to replace any of the pre filters either. I just blow them out every few months. I just replaced the brushes on My 150 last month. It is a work horse. If it died tomorrow I got more than my monies worth out of it. The resuable bag cost is chump change if you do the math for all the disposable bags I would have used. Also shop vacs have their disposables too which in my opinion the filters are expensive. The fine sanding dust clogs the shop vac filters eaisly even with the dust reservoirs. Cleaning the shop vacc filter is striaght up nasty compared to the festool. Also the ease of the festool for moving it around is exceptional. I have done so many projects inside the house with easy transport and excellent dust extraction. Over the eight years of heavy use I am on my third hose(under $200) and second set of brushes(one set free included in 150 carry box under cardboard insert/ $10 to buy), soft/medium/hard pads x 3. All these items are all wear and tear stuff. No problems with the vac or sander. Finally, the other festool sanders/jig saws I use to make boards are plug and play too. If you didn’t live so far away I would buy it all from you if you were not completely satisfied with what I suggested.
Many thanks thats some prity strong advice bb30 ! So this sander would cope with it all even verly large epoxy boards and i wont need the rotary any longer?
this was the place i was going to order from and the range of extractors they have, they all seam to have the 27mm hose though, do you have to upgrade to larger?
I think you are the vac bagger that does the downwind boards right? Your boards look awesome. If you bag the lams you already have eliminated much of the sanding necessary. 70% of my sanding are large boards(SUP, longboards). I get the makita out for when I screwed something up and I need to take lots of resin off. And to be honest, With the Green room resins it sands easier and I use less sand paper. Still no matter what resin, the festool would do it for you. I use the rotary in the festool with harder wood lams and resin.The hoses in the usa are 1 1/6" and 1 7/16" diameters. The 27mm is the small one I guess. So bottom line if you are getting tight lams and nice even final coats sanding is not a big issue. Regarding dust containment it is night and day difference if you are not using a properly ventialted sanding area. I have done auto boady repairs, counter tops, all sorts of finish carpentry with this thing. Havent even talked about the ease of changing sanding pads and sand paper.
I use bosh150pro, it´s the festool equivalent roto orbital sander from bosh. In roto orbital forced mode it´s really agressive. Orbital mode for finishes. I connected it to a karcher shop vac, with bag and hépa filter, it work good. Ro sanders are faster than polisher when you find right grit.
yes thats me although im only just geting in to vac bagging most of the time its just wet layup all sounding good though, going on to the sanding disks at present i use indasa rynolox plus and its amazing i love that stuff but you cant get the festool hole patern for the dust extraction, what disks do you use or do you make your own?
With any of the Fein, Festool, or new Bosch sanders, the issue is efficiency vs. quiet and dust. If you can’t tolerate dust and noise, then these are your only option but you’ll spend much more time trying to use them in the same role as a big rotary. I’ve used the old Festool 6" 150 EQ since 2004 with the mid sized vac. It’s used about 5 days / week primarily for production ding repair in combo rotary-orbit mode on both epoxy and poly. You can glass in the same room without problems. My son has done glassed tabletops and bars in restaurants (while closed) with no sanding mess to clean up. The only repairs that I’ve done in 11 years are brush, cord, and hose replacements. Bags are expensive, so get a Dust Deputy or other cyclone system which catches 90% before the bag. The exhaust filters last forever and only need to be blown out. The Festool “Rubin” type paper lasts a long time, and is very cost-effective over cutting and gluing sheets to a disk. In production full-board sanding, it’s no match for a Milwaukee or other big rotary, and this is primarily because the Festool is so light (and 6 inch disk). The weight of sanders and planers has a huge effect on their performance, but that’s another story. Beyond 320 grit, a heavy rotary is a must anyhow for a professional polished gloss finish unless you want to spend days instead of hours. I use it on full boards for rails and any detailed bottom contours. If you have top quality lams/hotcoats, full sanding of matte-finish shortboards is within the range of this tool (low volume production). Longboards would take forever with any 6" disk. It would be an ideal tool for production fin work, scrubbing machine shapes, or sanding eps seal coats. The main advantage of using the Festool vacuum unit is the quietness and reliability, and you’ll pay almost $400 USD for that. However, you can use it also for your planer (with cyclone system). It’s not a very powerful vacuum, so you can’t go much more than about 20 feet on flex hose or stationary vac piping. I’d buy another Festool system but this one will probably outlive me. Make a holder for the sander, with the cord and hose attached it likes to fall off any place you set down on.
cheers pete thanks for that thats a lot of great info it sounds like its a bit borderline if its worth it or not now. Im defantly not doing high production but when i would use it its on 12 and 14’ boards so its quite lare areas and it creats a lot of dust. My sanding area is allso in the same room as my cnc so it would be nice to keep the dust down and keep that all alot cleaner. At present im only using a 7" rotary so it wouldnt be a masive step down.
this is the type of festool sand paper you need. I know for sure. It is made for fiberglass/composite sanding. Kind of new in the past 18 mos. Has many grits available for your builds.
This festool is amazing. Emptied out 4-5 gallon of dust today with reuseable bag that is almost 10 years old. Building a hollow paulownia longboard and built out the rails with 18mm of balsa. I usually knock them down to shape with the festool 150 sander and my hard pad and low grit sand paper. I currently have Keith Melville’s Bosch planer that he sent for the sways crew to use in hawaii. I shape in an encloses area but do not use vacuum to the exhaust. The tubing in the pic off the exhaust I put on just to direct the foam away from my head. With my current build I decided to use the planer to knock dow the balsa rails and try to use the festool vac. The hose fit perfectly inside my exhaust mod. Kept everything in my vac bagging room and it worked like a charm. I have 20 amp fuses with two lines in my shop. The bosch hooked to the festool made the festool vac stop after 30 seconds on use but did not blow a fuse. Tried 3 more times with same result. So I place the bosch on the other 20 amp line and just let the festool vac run on manual. Really blew my mind how it controlled the mess. The festool is so out of the way compared to a shop vac. What a workhorse. worth every penny and then some. Also the bosch planer is amazing. Light, quiet, effective. I would buy one today if I could get a barrel grit drum on it.
Great combo Charlie…glad the Bosch made its way to you… I always hook up my planers (skil, hitachi, bosch, whatever) and sanders to vac, much less messy!! The festool vac and sanders are awesome, I have one as well… I love the auto start/stop, lack of noise, and their power cord too, it’s removable and interchangeable… super logical.
We can ask PeteC if a grit drum for the Bosch is available, or he may even have one already… I don’t know.
