marcustait79 said:
I'm merely working in Qatar trying to earn a crust to expand my means in the event the bottom continues to fall out the oil price and I find myself back on the tools full time! My home is Aberdeen, Scotland.
It is true I am mostly interested in the Festool Vac hence I am on this forum but I also think it is healthy to point towards more economical alternatives. I've watched the Festool stuff closely for years but was always put off by the price. I'm sure I will continue to add it to my collection but I will also keep an open mind for brands which might make an equally good product more affordably.
In the meantime, I'm grateful I could finally stretch to my first Festool in the TS 55 with 2.7M and 1.4M tracks and I hope we can find a way to assist each other ammicably in our efforts to build a better quality wood world!
Peace freinds!!!
Well getting back on topic, the CT26 aside from the RO150 is probably the Festool that's paid for itself the most. I've only ever had two problems with it:
1) the well known hose garage weakness when using T-Locs now fixed with two scraps of wood.
2) I keep filling it up!
As for tips / pointers I'd second Garry's, using a 36mm hose makes an enormous difference with all the tools you expect to produce 'tidal' waste so bigger routers and saws. With the other tools which are smaller or just produce less waste 27mm is easier to manage.
I didn't go autoclean but did upgrade the filter, it's not often I need to sand a little drywall so on balance I'd rather just replace the filter from time to time which I see as something you should do for piece of mind anyway just as you replace respirator filters.
One of the problems perhaps with the whole air quality thing is that you can't see much of the stuff that's really damaging so there's no qualitative way of knowing when a filter no long delivers what it should or if your not collecting the dust you should etc etc - well if you're knee deep in dust you probably aren't, but you get the point without regular metering you can just take precautions, I just change filter everytime I use the last bag in a box (5)
Don't use a DD but built my own TBS which comes into it's own for ripping down and routing so those 5 last the best part of a year.
Maybe that's too often or maybe not often enough?
