Festool conturo

[akatar]

I am thinking (for some time now) buying a festool conturo, only the thing is expensive...
Before i am going to buy it, i like to know if it's going to be supported for the years to come.

You read sometimes that festool quit a certain tool and i don't want to buy such a expensive tool to find out next year that is off the shelves. (just as vac sys, the sys oil stuff etc)

Any thoughts?

 

[tjbnwi]

I own two Conturos, they have applied miles and miles of edge banding. They do not get used as much as they once did since I purchase a floor model edge bander. I bought the 26 year old edge bander used, it cost less than one of the Conturos.

Seeing as you mentioned the VacSys (which I also own), I looked at the spare parts catalog, there are some parts NLA, for the most part it looks like many more parts are available.

Tom

 

[Hawkeye0001]

First off: Festool guarantees a 10 year supply of spares and support after end of production. Even if they'd stop the Conturo tomorrow (which I'm fairly certain they won't) you'd still get 10 years worth of mileage out of it.
Secondly: the consumables are not produced by Festool but IIRC by Jowat Adhesives, the only difference is the 63x26mm puck shape instead of the 63x80mm stick shape used by many other manufacturers (e.g. Holzherr). If Festool were to stop selling glue pucks you could simply buy some "Jowatherm" sticks instead and cut them it down into the appropriate size to fit the Conturo's glue port.

As far as the justification for the tool itself goes:
* if you do a lot of edgebanding, I'd 100% look for a stationary edge bander that also does the round-over in one pass. If you only do edgebanding a couple times a year, get the Conturo. If it's just once or twice a year, do it manually.
* if you have enough space, better get a stationary edge bander. If you do not, get the Conturo.
* if you frequently do round shapes: get the Conturo
* if you edgeband on site: get the Conturo.
* the initial investment is much more than the tool itself. Account for the whole system to work efficiently, i.e. get the set-variant, the table insert (or MFT), and the MFK 700 set with the 1.5° base. Also consumables are quite pricey compared to competitors using glue pellets (much smoother process though and far less mess)

Btw: you might also wanna check out Virutex or Holzherr, they have some excellent tools for melamine / edgebanding that are on par.

 

[woodferret]

Plus on the stationary is that you can get premill options. There's a lot of tradeoffs just to make edge-banding mobile and flexible for contours. For contours, if there's not too much, you can get away with spray adhesive. Still, I don't have any regrets on getting the Conturo as I'm only doing this for myself and not clients.

 

[tjbnwi]

Plus on the stationary is that you can get premill options. There's a lot of tradeoffs just to make edge-banding mobile and flexible for contours. For contours, if there's not too much, you can get away with spray adhesive. Still, I don't have any regrets on getting the Conturo as I'm only doing this for myself and not clients.

My edge bander does not have a pre-mill, don’t know if any did 26 years ago. For the most part this is not an issue for us because we do not do many melamine jobs. When we do the edge chipping is a big issue, even cutting the pieces on the CNC with compression bits.

In the sales section of this forum Jeff from Woodpecker posted they had developed a 4 flute alternating bevel router bit. I asked him to try it on melamine, from his results I ordered one.

Cut a panel on the table saw using a rip blade, I wanted a ragged edge. 2200 in the CMS, fence offset 2mm, the results. Top and bottom of the panel look the same off the CMS.







I had designed a pre-mill attachment for the bander, did not move forward once I got the cost of the necessary heads and motors. With this bit I’ll finish the design, the goal is to feed from the bit directly into the bander.

Just something else to consider.

I would not sell either of my Conturos, we do a few curved pieces a month and they worked as a back up when the bander lost a controller and was down for a couple of weeks waiting for the replacement.



Tom

 

[woodferret]

It'd be interesting to see how well that bit works when fully set up. Are the bigger chipouts from the rough TS? Or is the bit still managing to chip it?

 

[tjbnwi]

It'd be interesting to see how well that bit works when fully set up. Are the bigger chipouts from the rough TS? Or is the bit still managing to chip it?

The chip out is from the table saw. Used a rip blade hoping to get some bad chip out. There is no chip out on the panel after being cleaned up on the CMS with the Woodpecker bit.

Tom

 

[akatar]

Thank you all for the information and ideas

 

[noahpurdy]

I really wanted to buy one. I just couldn't stomach the cost, both the unit and the proprietary glue. Maksiwa makes a handheld glue pot unit called the CBC-Flex that is $1800. That seems a more reasonable investment.