First Impressions on RO 90 and questions

What's it feel like to have the RO 90 in your hands sculpting?  Does it vibrate the heck out of your hands or is it relatively benign?
 
We're getting a little off topic, but Paul-Marcel would have probably been well served using the interface pad. It would have conformed to those undulations in his carving, given smoother contours, and probably made it even easier to work that with the RO 90.

Paul-Marcel, I've been following your project, looking good. Looking forward to seeing the finished project. Where did you get the idea/inspiration for doing the sculpting?

http://www.festoolusa.com/products/sanders/pads/interface-pad-for-ro-90-dx-497481.html

Festool Interface Pad for Sanding Concave, Convex and Rounded Profiles
 
Well, it did get hot on the back.  Whether it is uncomfortable for you or not depends; since I was a waiter in college, my hands can hold flaming hot plates while aunt Mildred puts her 2-ton purse away for me to set it down...

So, I did 2 panels that night, but only recorded that one (it's enough!) so that's 2 hours with the RAS-115 and RO-90 non-stop.  At the end, I was getting tired of holding them, for sure, but I never had that numbing sensation you get from bad sanders.  I'm hyper-sensitive to that due to carpal-tunnel problems.

One thing that may not be noticed as much is the amount of dust.  Even though I'm using the sander on edge where its DC holes are at a disadvantage, I had very little dust when I was all done; chips, but no real dust.  Let's just say nothing settled into my stein to make its contents taste like Mahogany Ale  [embarassed]

If you're curious, the panel at the end isn't done.  I left the embossing proud because of what I want to record for the podcast; it'll get dropped considerably with the RAS-115 then finish-sanded with the RO-90 using 2 different interface pads.  Normally "grinder sculpting" is a disaster of dust and chips followed by boredom with hand-sanding.  I wanted to do this to see how it works to eliminate that part.

-- Speedy "¡Ándale! ¡Ándale! ¡Arriba! ¡Arriba! ¡Hepa¡ ¡Hepa! ¡Hepa! Yeehaw!"
Speedy_gonzales.jpg
 
Shane and I crisscrossed.

I experimented with the interface pads and other options on the offcut of the panel.  That'll be in the next podcast with some details on it.  The problem is that you have a steep edge created by a router.  If you push the stock pad ("soft") diagonally into the corner, it hits the flat bottom and edge of the embossed section and bends into the corner rounding it.  It actually also slightly dishes the flat near the edge, which actually makes for a cleaner effect, a little like embossing copper (some craft whose name I don't recall). You can pretty easily control which side dishes.  Maybe I'll detail that on the next podcast.

For final sanding, yes, the interface pad and the smaller interface pad are the ticket; absolutely!  At that point, you really don't want a lot of removal, just scratch removal.  The RAS-115 sculpting (not on the video earlier) was started with P50, but I got annoyed and switched to P24 halfway through; I had experimented with P24 but got all worried I'd dish it too fast so backed off to P50... wuss.  The RO-90 uses P80 as I don't have anything coarser, but I don't think I'd want it coarser as the rounding trick needs "slower" paper.

Anyway, it was fun, except the 104º shop part... that said, I'm eager to see it done, too :)
 
Yep, the rear of the sander gets warm to hot, depending on your usage and definition of hot.  As for grip/handling, I also used the holing grip like Shane posted for awhile, and now find I can run the sander in non-Rotex mode with just one hand.
Abrasive grit/coarse level and material surface also affect control of this sander for me. [smile]
 
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