Today I got an ETS125 and CT Mini. I imagine that most of what I can say about this is not novel to most readers here, but maybe there's an interesting detail hidden somewhere in my prattle.
I chose the ETS over the Rotex because what I'll be sanding in the near future is most likely nothing too heavy duty, but I hesitated a bit because the very first thing I was to do did involve stripping off an existing finish, to be precise a layer of nasty, gooey IKEA "Behandla" oil from a wood countertop. When I went into K-119 in San Bruno, Phil practically insisted that I actually go and try the various options, and I concluded that they are all perfectly capable of removing a considerable amount of material — it's just that the "finish" sanders are slower at it. Seeing as this is all of 5' worth of countertop we're talking about here I decided to take the (cheaper & easier to handle) ETS125. By the way, as mentioned before on the FOG, Phil is pretty amazing. In the middle of a busy day in a cramped tool store, he took plenty of time to listen to what I'm planning to do and give genuinely well-considered advice. In the end, I walked out with exactly the stuff I was planning to buy going in, but I was twice as confident that it was the right stuff. My only complaint about K-119 is that San Bruno isn't further south :
So did it work? I did sand the countertop, and it worked fine. Yes, it did take some time to get the crud off. But off it came. Once that was done, progressing through 120–180–220 to get a finer finish was very easy. Once it was all smooth, I put on mineral oil (if it's good enough for cutting boards it's gotta be good enough for countertops, and the IKEA stuff I do not like). I buffed it out with a piece of paper towel with the ETS125 (sandpaper still attached) set on top, which worked surprisingly well. I'm sure sheepskin would be better, but this is a work surface, and the finish is already much shinier than it was ever intended to be. The surface absorbed surprisingly little oil compared to the first time I oiled the thing. I imagine that either (1) a smoother surface somehow absorbs less oil, or (2) while I removed the visible layer of the old oil, there was still plenty inside the wood. Either way, I'm happy, because I was expecting to need endless coats again.
But back to reviewing Festool products. The Rubin 80 got clogged up with oil/sawdust paste after a while. It was easy enough to remove simply by brushing it off with a brush of the sort that comes with a dustpan (is there an English word for those?), but I did spot a piece of Granat 80 in the ETS125 Systainer and tried it for a portion of the work. It did not clog up at all. The Brilliant 120/180/220 also did clog up, and was slightly harder to clean: instead of two seconds with a brush, this required five seconds with the edge of a credit card, after which it was perfectly usable again. I can strongly recommend the Chase Sapphire credit card for this: who cares about cash-backs or interest rates, what matters is mechanical integrity, and Chase makes their cards out of metal! AmEx will do in a pinch ;-) Overall, the sandpaper all holds up amazingly well and at this rate I have no idea how I'm going to ever go through these boxes of 100. I'd better go build some really big things, I suppose.
Dust collection is amazing. I'd seen it before on Youtube but it was still amazing to see in real life. Only when sanding with the bottom of the sander partially protruding over an edge of the work did I see dust escape. That was easily avoided by just not riding over the edge more than necessary. There was also some dust that adhered to the surface, but that's inevitable, especially with the surface still being somewhat oily. It came off easily with the aforementioned brush of which I do not know the English name (I bet there isn't one), but in hindsight I should have used a vacuum cleaner; I'm sure the little Miele used to clean the carpet would have sucked it up just fine, depositing considerably less of it into my lungs and nose than the brush did. Seeing as I'm currently on my third course of antibiotics for sinusitis and I really don't want to make it any worse, I rinsed my nose after the whole exercise, and there was absolutely nothing funny visible in the water coming out. Festool should consider getting ENTs to recommend their gear to patients [wink]
[attachimg=1]
I chose the ETS over the Rotex because what I'll be sanding in the near future is most likely nothing too heavy duty, but I hesitated a bit because the very first thing I was to do did involve stripping off an existing finish, to be precise a layer of nasty, gooey IKEA "Behandla" oil from a wood countertop. When I went into K-119 in San Bruno, Phil practically insisted that I actually go and try the various options, and I concluded that they are all perfectly capable of removing a considerable amount of material — it's just that the "finish" sanders are slower at it. Seeing as this is all of 5' worth of countertop we're talking about here I decided to take the (cheaper & easier to handle) ETS125. By the way, as mentioned before on the FOG, Phil is pretty amazing. In the middle of a busy day in a cramped tool store, he took plenty of time to listen to what I'm planning to do and give genuinely well-considered advice. In the end, I walked out with exactly the stuff I was planning to buy going in, but I was twice as confident that it was the right stuff. My only complaint about K-119 is that San Bruno isn't further south :
So did it work? I did sand the countertop, and it worked fine. Yes, it did take some time to get the crud off. But off it came. Once that was done, progressing through 120–180–220 to get a finer finish was very easy. Once it was all smooth, I put on mineral oil (if it's good enough for cutting boards it's gotta be good enough for countertops, and the IKEA stuff I do not like). I buffed it out with a piece of paper towel with the ETS125 (sandpaper still attached) set on top, which worked surprisingly well. I'm sure sheepskin would be better, but this is a work surface, and the finish is already much shinier than it was ever intended to be. The surface absorbed surprisingly little oil compared to the first time I oiled the thing. I imagine that either (1) a smoother surface somehow absorbs less oil, or (2) while I removed the visible layer of the old oil, there was still plenty inside the wood. Either way, I'm happy, because I was expecting to need endless coats again.
But back to reviewing Festool products. The Rubin 80 got clogged up with oil/sawdust paste after a while. It was easy enough to remove simply by brushing it off with a brush of the sort that comes with a dustpan (is there an English word for those?), but I did spot a piece of Granat 80 in the ETS125 Systainer and tried it for a portion of the work. It did not clog up at all. The Brilliant 120/180/220 also did clog up, and was slightly harder to clean: instead of two seconds with a brush, this required five seconds with the edge of a credit card, after which it was perfectly usable again. I can strongly recommend the Chase Sapphire credit card for this: who cares about cash-backs or interest rates, what matters is mechanical integrity, and Chase makes their cards out of metal! AmEx will do in a pinch ;-) Overall, the sandpaper all holds up amazingly well and at this rate I have no idea how I'm going to ever go through these boxes of 100. I'd better go build some really big things, I suppose.
Dust collection is amazing. I'd seen it before on Youtube but it was still amazing to see in real life. Only when sanding with the bottom of the sander partially protruding over an edge of the work did I see dust escape. That was easily avoided by just not riding over the edge more than necessary. There was also some dust that adhered to the surface, but that's inevitable, especially with the surface still being somewhat oily. It came off easily with the aforementioned brush of which I do not know the English name (I bet there isn't one), but in hindsight I should have used a vacuum cleaner; I'm sure the little Miele used to clean the carpet would have sucked it up just fine, depositing considerably less of it into my lungs and nose than the brush did. Seeing as I'm currently on my third course of antibiotics for sinusitis and I really don't want to make it any worse, I rinsed my nose after the whole exercise, and there was absolutely nothing funny visible in the water coming out. Festool should consider getting ENTs to recommend their gear to patients [wink]
[attachimg=1]
