Festool Rotex Ro 150 Sanding to a polish!

[A-man]

What do you all use at the end of sanding to do your final polish? What type of polishes do you use or what wax and how do you apply it?
Thank you for all of your comments and input!  I would like to find out what polish everybody likes to use and how they put it on. [size=[/b][/b]12pt]

 

[NoBreyner]

I only went up to 4000 platin on scrap walnut and cherry with my Ro90.  I want to go further, but I don't have the felt or sheepskin (yet).  I love how you don't have to wait several hours over two or more days waiting for the finish to dry before moving onto the next step.  Doing it this way makes the wood's grain look holographic.

 

[semenza]

A-man,

Welcome to the FOG !  [smile]

That is a nifty avatar you've got there.

Seth

 

[A-man]

A-man,

Welcome to the FOG !  [smile]

That is a nifty avatar you've got there.

Seth

Thank you !!!

 

[A-man]

I only went up to 4000 platin on scrap walnut and cherry with my Ro90.  I want to go further, but I don't have the felt or sheepskin (yet).  I love how you don't have to wait several hours over two or more days waiting for the finish to dry before moving onto the next step.  Doing it this way makes the wood's grain look holographic.

Have you tried any polishes? And or Waxes?

 

[A-man]

I only went up to 4000 platin on scrap walnut and cherry with my Ro90.  I want to go further, but I don't have the felt or sheepskin (yet).  I love how you don't have to wait several hours over two or more days waiting for the finish to dry before moving onto the next step.  Doing it this way makes the wood's grain look holographic.

Festool Rotex RO 150 Sanding To A Polish

Edited to embed video - P.Halle

 

[Frank Pellow]

First of all, welcome to the FOG!

I describe the technique that I use in the thread: http://festoolownersgroup.com/member-projects/chinese-checker-boards-finished-just-with-wax/

In that thread, I was finishing cherry, but I have also finished maple and walnut the same way.

 

[NoBreyner]

I only went up to 4000 platin on scrap walnut and cherry with my Ro90.  I want to go further, but I don't have the felt or sheepskin (yet).  I love how you don't have to wait several hours over two or more days waiting for the finish to dry before moving onto the next step.  Doing it this way makes the wood's grain look holographic.

Have you tried any polishes? And or Waxes?

The only coating I've applied was a thin coat of Renaissance Wax.  The coat was very thin and removed by hand with a blue paper towel.  I may do the other side of the cherry scrap with Felt and using compounds.  I'm also considering using a wood turners sponge assortment that goes all the way up to 12,000 grit, just to see what it will look like.  Either way I'll try to get pics up here of the results.

As it turns out that I do have felt on hand and it sticks to the sander without any backing.  I used it as drawer liners and had some spare squares from a fabric store; kind of embarrassing considering I'm the only guy there not accompanying their wives.  Well anywho I'm using a Ro90 disk as a template to cut some felt to size to take my polishing to the next level.

 

[Timtool]

I usually start at grit 50 in rotex mode like you did, then i do another pass in Random mode, then i switch to the ETS150/5 with grit 80-120-180-220.
I don't know the hardness of the wood you used, but on european beechwood i find it hard to conceive that you could go from P80 in rotex mode, directly to P120 in Random Orbit mode. It's possible that a brand new pad of 120 can get the P80 rotex swirls away. But i presume that would wear out the pad rapidly. I find it more economical to remove the rotex marks with the same grit in random mode first.

Depending on the finish i stop at 120 for acrylic, 180 for poly and 220 for oil. I once visited a factory that made oak and beechwood stairs with CNC mostly, they told me they never sand above 120, it's not necessary they told me, no matter the finish. And their finished stairs were impeccable to the eye and touch.
When using oil i was thought not to sand above 220 in order not to close the grain and make the wood impenetrable to any finish?
I use the festool surfix oil, sand to 220, apply oil, polish with rotex with rough polish pad, when dry sand with 320, reapply oil and polish with soft polish pad and rotex. The result is not glasslike obviously, but rather satin-like

 

[NoBreyner]

OK, I re polished two sides of a piece of cherry scrap.  All of the steps were followed by the thread OP.  At the 240 grit I raised the grain of the cherry then sanded it away after it dried then continued onto the finer grits.

Below are two pictures of one side polished to 4,000 grit Platin then polished with some soft felt.  Finally I used a Lake Country 4" black foam pad to rotex in some Zaino All in One (AiO) then topped it off with Zaino's Z-2 Pro, since this is for clear coated paints I'm probably going to finish with a coat of Renaissance Wax later instead.  It may or may not stick, but I'm doing it anyway.

The next two pics are of the other side sanded to 4,000 grit Platin, then finish sanded using 6K, 8K, and 12K grits from foam backed turners sanding pads.  Then finished using Zaino AiO and Z-2.  I'll use the Renaissance wax on this too.

Lastly is a video of the 12,000 grit side raked against a light.  I'll attach a youtube video to my 12K sanded piece

12K Grit with rake light.mp4