I'm talking about the RAS 115. This isn't a review but just some observations of mine and i believe some misconceptions of others and previously myself.
I had a stair and landing which needed the paint and deck coating removed altogether or at least to a level that would reliably take new paint or coatings. I needed some new abrasives and looked on the FOG abrasives thread and it says I think cristal, Titan, and saphir are best for this and rubin for bare wood (for a RAS). Here are some point for things I found:
-My dealer said they only had saphir and that he didn't know if the others would be good anyways. With the ras only doing one thing, removing stuff aggressively, you think you'd know and stock the couple types.
-I asked for extremely aggressive grit because it was going to be very tough and slow, they suggested 36 max otherwise it would tear apart the wood below and take forever to get rid of the marks.
-They said producing a flat surface would be tough as the ras is used with half the pad in a tilted manner.
-I mentioned that I had surprisingly good results with higher grits that I had with my ras. The dealer said that was not what it was intended for.
I'm not trying to sound negative about my dealer, in fact I say these things only because I pretty much agreed with or expected all the things above.
So,
-The saphir seemed great. Don't think I could expect any better from an abrasive. Even the used and clogged papers I was throwing away still could be used if you wanted but they didn't "cut" the same way as new and so I needed to move onto new ones.
-The first day I quickly realized the 36 grit was not aggressive enough. I had to use a speed of 6 for proper results and focus on not putting much pressure on otherwise the papers would gunk up and be so slow they were garbage. I got 24 the next day and it was much better. If there was a 10 I would have got that. The surprising thing was for example when I sanded the soft red cedar hand rails the ras didn't tear, cut, or leave any marks. In fact my rotex with twice the grit leaves terrible swirl marks without taking off much coating either.
-while using it for 15 hrs in two days I realized that the ras is fine used flat to the workpiece. Just like the rotexes it takes time and a technique and once again the surprise was that it was even easier to control than my RO90.
-I don't think festool accidentally made higher grit abrasives for the ras. Both here and elsewhere guys have said they use their rotex only in rotary mode unless above 120g or so and then only if using stain. The shinex is rotary and used to polish at a super fine level. Why is rotary only suitable to super coarse or super fine? I don't think it is. Using my ras with 24g on red cedar left a smooth surface ready for paint! I'm not joking.
Many people love the ras myself included. But I was surprised how many things I thought I knew about it that proved to be wrong after these two long days of sanding. Now this is absolutely my favorite sander and not the one trick pony I thought it was!
PS- some parts of the stair had 12 coatings!
I had a stair and landing which needed the paint and deck coating removed altogether or at least to a level that would reliably take new paint or coatings. I needed some new abrasives and looked on the FOG abrasives thread and it says I think cristal, Titan, and saphir are best for this and rubin for bare wood (for a RAS). Here are some point for things I found:
-My dealer said they only had saphir and that he didn't know if the others would be good anyways. With the ras only doing one thing, removing stuff aggressively, you think you'd know and stock the couple types.
-I asked for extremely aggressive grit because it was going to be very tough and slow, they suggested 36 max otherwise it would tear apart the wood below and take forever to get rid of the marks.
-They said producing a flat surface would be tough as the ras is used with half the pad in a tilted manner.
-I mentioned that I had surprisingly good results with higher grits that I had with my ras. The dealer said that was not what it was intended for.
I'm not trying to sound negative about my dealer, in fact I say these things only because I pretty much agreed with or expected all the things above.
So,
-The saphir seemed great. Don't think I could expect any better from an abrasive. Even the used and clogged papers I was throwing away still could be used if you wanted but they didn't "cut" the same way as new and so I needed to move onto new ones.
-The first day I quickly realized the 36 grit was not aggressive enough. I had to use a speed of 6 for proper results and focus on not putting much pressure on otherwise the papers would gunk up and be so slow they were garbage. I got 24 the next day and it was much better. If there was a 10 I would have got that. The surprising thing was for example when I sanded the soft red cedar hand rails the ras didn't tear, cut, or leave any marks. In fact my rotex with twice the grit leaves terrible swirl marks without taking off much coating either.
-while using it for 15 hrs in two days I realized that the ras is fine used flat to the workpiece. Just like the rotexes it takes time and a technique and once again the surprise was that it was even easier to control than my RO90.
-I don't think festool accidentally made higher grit abrasives for the ras. Both here and elsewhere guys have said they use their rotex only in rotary mode unless above 120g or so and then only if using stain. The shinex is rotary and used to polish at a super fine level. Why is rotary only suitable to super coarse or super fine? I don't think it is. Using my ras with 24g on red cedar left a smooth surface ready for paint! I'm not joking.
Many people love the ras myself included. But I was surprised how many things I thought I knew about it that proved to be wrong after these two long days of sanding. Now this is absolutely my favorite sander and not the one trick pony I thought it was!
PS- some parts of the stair had 12 coatings!
I slow it down a little bit on the final pass, and roll the RAS a little bit. It's so darned fast compared to other methods. I don't know the brand of sandpaper, it's either 50 grit or 80 grit. They both work 
