Abrasive Frustration!

[Brice Burrell]

Abrasive Frustration!

I love Festool's range of abrasive offerings, there's an abrasive for almost every task you could think of. Sanding wood, finishes, metals, plastics, solid surface even concrete is no problem with Festool abrasives. They're a good value too. I've found them to hold up as well or better than any of the competitors. But still I suffer from Abrasive Frustration. Why you may ask, well it's the buying part that is the source of my frustration.

No, it's not the price nor the availability of product on shelves (although that is a problem for some). It's trying to figure out what quantities are offered in each type of abrasive for each grit. There seems to be no rhyme or reason for the quantities offered. For example, the 125mm sanders you can only buy P400 Brilliant 2 in 100 packs but P120 in 5, 10 and 100 packs, why, who decides this stuff?

I buy my Festool abrasives from an online dealer so I need to keep a supply on hand to prevent from running out while on the job. I spend a few hundred dollars on abrasives each year, while buying the 100 packs can be a good value it's not always the best choice. for me the buying process goes something like this, first I look at my supply to see what I need, then get online to my vendor's site then try to figure out what quantities the abrasive I want are offered in then add the item to my cart and move to the next abrasive I need. (Searching through the vendor's site isn't necessarily as easy as it might sound.) Sure it's not too hard to figure out what the best buy is for one or two grits for one sander. But try it for six or eight different grits for three types of abrasive and for three or four sanders, it can be frustrating!

So what's the solution? Well, here's what I'd like to see, at a minimum offer Cristal, Rubin and Brilliant 2 in 50 packs in each grit for every sander type/size. It would be better if the offerings were 10, 25, 50 and 100 for the three types of abrasives listed. For the other abrasives, Saphir, Titan 2 and Platin 2, I'd like to see small packs offered as it is for Vlies.

I'd be interested in hearing what other users think on this subject and please offer your input, it could help Festool decide it's worth offering a better selection of abrasives to help us avoid Abrasive Frustration. 

 

[Mac]

I totally agree Brice. As a new-comer to the festool sander and abrasive range, I've been trying to get a good feel for what they offer for my ETS 150/3. My problem is that even online I find it very hard to find small packs (anything below 50) in most of the papers, even the rubin or brilliant...I'd assumed this was because I'm in the UK.  This makes it very difficult for me to learn which would be best for me to use.  As a starter hobbyist, can I really afford or is it sensible for me to start buying packs of 100 in any paper?? Certainly not.  I want packs of 10 in all papers, please!

Mac

 

[AlexThePalex]

I also agree with Brice. The package sizes are a bit frustrating. The bigger size packages are handy when your a professional of course. But looking back at the days when my father's body shop was still operating, we mostly used a couple of grits a lot, but others only on occasion. From both 120 and 240 we used about 3 or 4 100 packs a week, but grits like 40, 60, 400 or 1200 were only used very rarely. So buying large packages of the latter was not economical, but fortunately we had a very good supplier that would let us order such grits in any amount we wanted, starting with a single disc.

Right now I'm not in the professional paint business anymore, but because I do know how to work like a pro, people keep asking me if I can do jobs for them, working on their houses or cars. It's enough to be busy for a couple of hours every week, but since I got me 3 Festool sanders now, the RO150, the RTS400 and the DX93, it's not enough to warrant purchasing the 50 or 100 size packages for all 3 of them. Especially not when you consider all the different types of abrasives Festool got.

I got a supply of 4 different types of sandpaper now, Brilliant 2, Cristal, Saphir and as of shortly, Rubin. Because I want to work efficiently and get the best type of paper for the specific job. And the right grit of course. Say you want to have a minimum of the most used grits available, then I'm looking at 40, 80, 120, 180 and 320. That's 5. Now add this all up and I'm looking at a supply of 3 machines x 4 types x 5 grits = 60 different packages of sandpaper I have to have at hand. (Not to mention I want to add the ETS125 and DTS400 to my collection very soon. Another two different sizes.)

Oops.

Well, not oops. I'm very happy Festool delivers such an outstanding collection of sanders and sandpaper, but for me, it would be best suited if I could buy them in 10 piece packages. Because buying the bigger packages is not affordable for me. As a result, part of the Festool range is OFF LIMITS for me. I don't like that.

Now there are some 10 piece packages, but unfortunately only in the lower grits. Last week I needed Rubin or Brilliant 2 in 320 grit or higher for the RTS400, and it was just not possible. Some time ago I was working on a car and would have loved trying out Titan, but Titan is not even available in small packages. I went to a local body shop and got me some 3M paper. A missed chance for Festool because if Titan was available in 10 piece packages I would have used that.

So in short, I want more availability of Festool's sandpaper in small quantities.

 

[Forrest Anderson]

Well, here's what I'd like to see, at a minimum offer Cristal, Rubin and Brilliant 2 in 50 packs in each grit for every sander type/size. It would be better if the offerings were 10, 25, 50 and 100 for the three types of abrasives listed. For the other abrasives, Saphir, Titan 2 and Platin 2, I'd like to see small packs offered as it is for Vlies.

I'd be interested in hearing what other users think on this subject and please offer your input, it could help Festool decide it's worth offering a better selection of abrasives to help us avoid Abrasive Frustration.  

I agree wholeheartedly. I'm glad a professional woodworker, who must get through a lot of abrasive, has raised the subject. Where I live, local dealers tend to have Brilliant in various sizes of the common grits (eg 80-150) and even in various pack quantities (where Festool market them), but as soon as you mention Cristal or Rubin they tend to shrug their shoulders (and probably wonder why you are deviating from Brilliant!).

The second-last dealer I visited (about 40 miles away) had the abrasive I wanted, but refused to break a 100-pack, and the dealer I visited last week didn't stock any Cristal, never mind in the size and grit and pack quantity I was after!

In order to get my hands on some Rubin for my RO125 and some Brilliant for my LS130, I had to order from one of the largest UK dealers (Miles Tool & Machinery Centre), and they had to order it from Germany! The shipment took over a week to arrive, and since I had got the impression from their website that they had it in stock, I wasn't best pleased.

I've sometimes been tempted to buy a box of 100 and then try to sell it in 10-packs on eBay as a service to other woodworkers, but Festool UK might not be too happy, and I'm not sure how many people would actually be interested.

I did have one success story. A year ago, at a dealer who is 60 miles away, and at whom I'd just bought 500 GBP or assorted tools and accessories, agreed to split a few 100-packs - but that's because he didn't have in stock the smaller 5- or 10-packs that Festool sold. I don't know what would have happened if I'd asked him to split a 100-pack of something that Festool didn't supply in smaller quantities.

In summary, I'd love Festool to market their abrasive range in smaller quantities! In my opinion,there are not nearly enough small-quantity packs available, and users have to rely on the good nature of dealers to bend to rules a bit and mess up their stock accounting systems.

Forrest

 

[Brice Burrell]

I also agree with Brice. The package sizes are a bit frustrating. The bigger size packages are handy when your a professional of course. But looking back at the days when my father's body shop was still operating, we mostly used a couple of grits a lot, but others only on occasion. From both 120 and 240 we used about 3 or 4 100 packs a week, but grits like 40, 60, 400 or 1200 were only used very rarely. So buying large packages of the latter was not economical, but fortunately we had a very good supplier that would let us order such grits in any amount we wanted, starting with a single disc..............

I got a supply of 4 different types of sandpaper now, Brilliant 2, Cristal, Saphir and as of shortly, Rubin. Because I want to work efficiently and get the best type of paper for the specific job. And the right grit of course. Say you want to have a minimum of the most used grits available, then I'm looking at 40, 80, 120, 180 and 320. That's 5. Now add this all up and I'm looking at a supply of 3 machines x 4 types x 5 grits = 60 different packages of sandpaper I have to have at hand..........

Alex, that's where I'm at too. I use a lot 80 grit, I could justify buying it in 500 packs it Festool offered it. But then there a other grits that I need but not enough to buy in 100 packs. Like you I have a few Festool sanders, I have the ETS150, RO125, ES125, ETS125, DTS400 and I just bought a RTS400 and LS130. Plus I plan on adding the DX93 very soon. That will be five different size/shape abrasives times each needed grit and type of abrasive, it adds up fast so I need to be careful to spend the money carefully. Having smaller pack available would make that a lot easier.

 

[Michael Kellough]

I don't plan to order any more Rubin.

It seems to me Rubin wears out about 3 times faster than Brilliant.

 

[JJ Wavra]

I wonder if we could start a category here on the fog for exchanging paper.

Also,  I have a small shop and it starts to me a problem of stocking all those abrasive boxes.  I have four different types of sanders  and tend to stock quite a bit for them.

JJ

 

[kdzito]

I agree with Brice as well and here is my rant.  I feel everyone's pain.  Festool sandpaper offerings have no rhyme or reason for the quantity offered in each type/grit.

Trying to order Festool abrasives takes way too much time by trying to reference the Festool abrasive catalog with the limited and sporadic quantity offerings and also making sacrifices in which abrasive type to not get stuck with due a larger box quantity!!!  This is one area where the Faster, Easier, and Smarter is should be called Frivolous, Expensive, and Slower.   An example is that if I wanted Rubin in 180 grit a 10 pack is not offered, then I have to substitute it for a Brilliant 2 as the 10 pack is offered here.

Many of the other manufacturers (3M, Norton, & Mirka) offer a 3, 5, 6, and ect. sheet/disc packs and then as we know very well Festool just offers 10, 25, 50, and 100 count packs/boxes.  I think they need to offer the smaller count packs because its crazy on how much abrasive must be bought to take care of one sander due to the varied quantities offered.  Just to get a minimum quantity with a Brilliant line of sandpaper for a 6" orbital in the 80, 100, 120, 150, & 180 grits means buying at least 270 sheets and due to their sporadic quantity offered and this amounts to $105, while if they offered all 10 packs of each grit, then only getting 50 sheets totaling $35.  I also know that some here have a larger variety of sanders (upwards of 8 sanders) and is well over $800 just to feed all of them with Festool's abrasives.

I know about the volume discounts by buying larger quantities, but it really doesn't justify this way of buying abrasives for the majority of us and do we really want to keep a stock of sandpaper that may never be used?  

My local Woodcraft dealer only carries the larger count boxes and this is really a pain because there's no convenience here as they cater to the hobbyists as well the contractors/shops and he probably could sell more with also offering the smaller quantity packs and make more profit in the end.

 

 

[kdzito]

I wonder if we could start a category here on the fog for exchanging paper.

Also,  I have a small shop and it starts to me a problem of stocking all those abrasive boxes.  I have four different types of sanders  and tend to stock quite a bit for them.

JJ

I'm for it.  I have been forced to buy some 50 count boxes of Rubin in 150 grit and can offer this for the DTS 400, RTS 400, RS 2 E, and ETS 150/3.

 

[AlexThePalex]

I would love to be part of an exchange category for abrasives. Unfortunately I'm not in the States but in Europe so shipping becomes costly .

Btw, my calculation for my sanders of 60 different types was a bit exaggerated, of course not all types of abrasives go all the way with grits and not all types are offered for every sander. For Saphir I only use 50 and 80, and Cristal up to 120. I made a count of all the types I have, got 23 different types/grits/sizes from Festool and 4 from other manufacturers.

 

[Mac]

Alex, I'm based in the UK too, maybe there are others who're interested?

mac

 

[Aegwyn11]

Reviving a moderately old thread...I apologize in advance for the rant...

I'm really starting to get going with my Rotex on a project I'm working on and quickly getting frustrated at this situation. I'm a hobbyist, so I don't need a whole lot of paper...I pretty much resigned myself that for (for the most part) the 50 and 100 ct. boxes I'm being forced to buy will just last nearly forever. Now for this little project I'm working on (painting my ClearVue MDF pieces to a high gloss finish), I want to really make the finish shine. So I was planning on sanding with Brilliant up to 400 grit, then using Platin to go all the way up to 'really shiny' (2000 or 4000 grit). But, each box of Platin has --15-- pads and is just over $50 each. So, if I want to go 1000-2000-4000, thats over $150 worth of paper. And given their use case, I can't imagine Platin is going to wear out on me very quickly at all.

My point is that I had rationalized the 50 and 100 ct. boxes of regular paper in that it might take me forever to go through them, but I would use them eventually. I'm not sure that I'd EVER get through 15 each of Platin in 1000/2000/4000. I'd be MUCH happier if Festool would just offer ALL their normal paper in 25 ct. boxes, and Platin in boxes more like 5 ct. I'll happily pay the extra $1.00 it cost them to pack/ship/etc. 4 boxes of 25 ct. rather than 1 box of 100 ct.

Alternatively, did anything ever happen on the idea of a paper exchange here on the FOG? I'm all for that idea... especially since it looks like I'll have a ridiculous amount of Platin here soon.

 

[Holzhacker]

I have to agree on the paper quantities. I think the easiest solution would be for Festool to allow dealers to sell pieces out of full boxes. If the dealer has a 100ct. box, let him sell, 2 or 7 pieces to a walk-in customer. I'd pay an extra penny, nickel? per sheet if I could only buy what I actually needed. As others have mentioned, on regular grits it's no big deal. On those really high grits I really don't want to spend the money for the box to lay around for years. Sander paper exchange sounds good. 10 cts that can go into a regular envelope.

 

[tbellemare]

There are a number of 10-packs of various Festool abrasives. Perhaps that will help with some of your abrasive frustration?

Tom

 

[Aegwyn11]

There are a number of 10-packs of various Festool abrasives. Perhaps that will help with some of your abrasive frustration?

Tom

These 10-packs are appreciated, but honestly a pretty weak attempt on Festool's part. As Brice mentioned in the original post, which grits get chosen for 10-packs seems to be totally arbitrary. Festool really should have 10 or 25 ct. boxes available for ALL the various sizes and grits. Or as Holzhacker mentioned, allow dealers such as Tom or Bob to break boxes and advertise abrasives on a per sheet basis (for example, $.90/sheet for Brilliant 6" 320 grit, or something similar). Or allow us to establish our own sandpaper exchange on the FOG. Either the second or third options would require nothing on Festool's part...just for them to give the okay to do such things.

 

[Neill]

Reviving a moderately old thread...I apologize in advance for the rant...

I'm really starting to get going with my Rotex on a project I'm working on and quickly getting frustrated at this situation. I'm a hobbyist, so I don't need a whole lot of paper...I pretty much resigned myself that for (for the most part) the 50 and 100 ct. boxes I'm being forced to buy will just last nearly forever. Now for this little project I'm working on (painting my ClearVue MDF pieces to a high gloss finish), I want to really make the finish shine. So I was planning on sanding with Brilliant up to 400 grit, then using Platin to go all the way up to 'really shiny' (2000 or 4000 grit). But, each box of Platin has --15-- pads and is just over $50 each. So, if I want to go 1000-2000-4000, thats over $150 worth of paper. And given their use case, I can't imagine Platin is going to wear out on me very quickly at all.

My point is that I had rationalized the 50 and 100 ct. boxes of regular paper in that it might take me forever to go through them, but I would use them eventually. I'm not sure that I'd EVER get through 15 each of Platin in 1000/2000/4000. I'd be MUCH happier if Festool would just offer ALL their normal paper in 25 ct. boxes, and Platin in boxes more like 5 ct. I'll happily pay the extra $1.00 it cost them to pack/ship/etc. 4 boxes of 25 ct. rather than 1 box of 100 ct.

Alternatively, did anything ever happen on the idea of a paper exchange here on the FOG? I'm all for that idea... especially since it looks like I'll have a ridiculous amount of Platin here soon.

Nick,

I also agree with you but I have two solutions.  Timmy C. at Festool Junkie will sell less than full boxes.  Other dealers may do so as well but I know for sure that Timmy will.  This is probably your best bet for Platin, which is excellent for what you want to use it for.

The other option is to use other brands.  I have started using Mirka's Abranet abrasive and have been very pleased.  It is available in 10 packs and also assortments of single grits up to 600 grit.  Since they are a mesh screen, no worries about lining up the holes.  Also because of the mesh you can interchange them with other sanders.  Dust extraction is excellent because air flows through the entire pad.  You are not restricted to flow through a few holes only.  You can actually turn up the speed of your vac.

Other advantages are that the grit is clearly marked on the pad, not always so clear on Festool.  The pad seems to hold up very well and the mesh does not clog as readily as regular sandpaper.

Only downside is that you should buy a protective disk that fits between your abrasive disk and sanding pad.  They are 2 for about $22 for 6" and $18 for 5".  You can also get one included with the assortment.  They last a long time.  They are not required but are recommended.  The protective disk has a hole pattern that looks very similar to the new Festool pattern. I bought mine at Woodcraft but I am sure that they are available elsewhere.

Neill

 

[CharlesWilson]

What would be nice would be an assorted pack of Platin, maybe 2 or 3 of each grit. That would end up being in the price point of a single box of Platin.  They could do the same with some of the other abrasives. This would certainly be a more economical way for those hobbyists among us to make full use of our sanders.

Charles

 

[Dan Clark]

I'd like to see an assortment pack of a single type (like Cristal or Platin) in multiple grits.  I don't mind buying the bigger packs, but I'd like to see how they work out BEFORE I buy. 

For example, I like Cristal and Brilliant2, but am not a big fan of Rubin.  So why do I have so much Rubin?  Because I had to make a choice without much information.  (This was purchased before the Abrasives Brochure was available.)

Regards,

Dan.

 

[Aegwyn11]

Timmy C. at Festool Junkie will sell less than full boxes.  Other dealers may do so as well but I know for sure that Timmy will.  This is probably your best bet for Platin, which is excellent for what you want to use it for.

Just went over to that site and he does indeed. This is definitely the way I will go, especially for my Platin needs. I just wish all dealers (including local ones) did this.

 

[Bob Marino]

I am a tad late to this party, but dealers can break up the sandpapers boxes any way they wish, I do (for years).
Also it would be nice to see the complete grit range at (least in  Rubin, Brillant and Saphir) come in 10 packs and the Platin in 5 packs and/or an Assortment box of 3 each of all the Platin grits.

Bob