friedchicken
Member
- Joined
- May 6, 2022
- Messages
- 25
Hallo all from Texas;
I registered a while back but haven't posted... I guess a bad omen in my future.
I'm not sure how I would classify my woodworking: I don't do it for fun, but I also don't do it professionally. I dove headfirst into it during the pandemic: building a butcher block countertop for the kitchen from rough sawn maple.
Oh boy, never again.
That got me my Bosch GET75-6N (Bosch's 6" Rotex). Loaded myself up with Klingspor sandpaper for it too. That project taught many lessons, including the painful ones.
That Bosch is fantastic, and served as my only sander. I sanded and still sand all sorts of projects with it. Need power? Turbo mode. Normal sanding? Normal mode. Removes material like crazy.
Well... bad omens. This whole time I was researching tools and looking at festool. Liked what I saw, the price was too painful. I couldn't justify spending money like that. Well... I should have.
Just before thanksgiving I ordered the DTS 400. The justification was: 1 mega sander, 1 finish sander (and getting corners nooks and crannies).
It took a lot of self reflection, debating, justification, researching, thinking, suffering... Festool was the only one that offered everything I needed/wanted: delta, corded, variable speed, quality, common sense.... with one stupid annoying caveat: you need two separate sanders for the rectangle and the delta.
It was very close between it and the Bosch GSS18V-40N. In fact I bought both. The Bosch has interchangeable pads, and on black friday came with a deal: two batteries and a charger for $160, the tool is "free". Three interchangeable pads, Delta, Rectangle, and Sheet. Variable speed. Bosch quality.... but made in China. I'd easily recommend it to someone today, except it has one huge dealbreaker: in an attempt to make it compatible with the full battery lineup, the dust/vacuum port goes out the side not the back. Why they would do this on a sander DESIGNED TO GO UP AGAINST EDGES AND INTO CORNERS I don't know. I probably would have kept the Bosch simply because of the three interchangeable pads.
Then the Festool. Idk what to say. The second I opened the box I could tell this was something else. It's always the small details that matter. I bought a Makita D-Handle router full price special order because I needed a good router and wanted the D-Handle. The unlock button to pull the trigger was recessed into the handle so it was almost impossible to start single handed because releasing the safety was too difficult. Returned, instantly. These things matter and not in an intangible or stupid way.
Damn. The Festool gets everything right. The box that stores the tool in such a way that it doesn't sit on the pad, and then has room so I can squeeze all my Delta sandpaper in there. The paddle switch with a tangible click. Even the Festool sandpaper. This one really caught me off guard: I thought it would be the same as the Klingspor, but the way it hooked onto the pad is unlike anything I've used thus far. These details matter.
Idk what to say. Thinking about all the time I've spent fussing around with tools and trying to get something that works, I could simply have bought the festool and been done. I'm still not convinced of the entire product lineup. Admittedly I haven't tried the tools, but I know Bosch tools are excellent, as are other German tools. Still, now they are on my radar... I guess it's worth mentioning, I've already bought another Festool, an ETS 150/3 I found at a pawn shop that I paid a price for I'm not going to mention... but it needs work and is currently in pieces in the garage. Yeah
Anyway, Hallo!
I registered a while back but haven't posted... I guess a bad omen in my future.
I'm not sure how I would classify my woodworking: I don't do it for fun, but I also don't do it professionally. I dove headfirst into it during the pandemic: building a butcher block countertop for the kitchen from rough sawn maple.
Oh boy, never again.
That got me my Bosch GET75-6N (Bosch's 6" Rotex). Loaded myself up with Klingspor sandpaper for it too. That project taught many lessons, including the painful ones.
That Bosch is fantastic, and served as my only sander. I sanded and still sand all sorts of projects with it. Need power? Turbo mode. Normal sanding? Normal mode. Removes material like crazy.
Well... bad omens. This whole time I was researching tools and looking at festool. Liked what I saw, the price was too painful. I couldn't justify spending money like that. Well... I should have.
Just before thanksgiving I ordered the DTS 400. The justification was: 1 mega sander, 1 finish sander (and getting corners nooks and crannies).
It took a lot of self reflection, debating, justification, researching, thinking, suffering... Festool was the only one that offered everything I needed/wanted: delta, corded, variable speed, quality, common sense.... with one stupid annoying caveat: you need two separate sanders for the rectangle and the delta.
It was very close between it and the Bosch GSS18V-40N. In fact I bought both. The Bosch has interchangeable pads, and on black friday came with a deal: two batteries and a charger for $160, the tool is "free". Three interchangeable pads, Delta, Rectangle, and Sheet. Variable speed. Bosch quality.... but made in China. I'd easily recommend it to someone today, except it has one huge dealbreaker: in an attempt to make it compatible with the full battery lineup, the dust/vacuum port goes out the side not the back. Why they would do this on a sander DESIGNED TO GO UP AGAINST EDGES AND INTO CORNERS I don't know. I probably would have kept the Bosch simply because of the three interchangeable pads.
Then the Festool. Idk what to say. The second I opened the box I could tell this was something else. It's always the small details that matter. I bought a Makita D-Handle router full price special order because I needed a good router and wanted the D-Handle. The unlock button to pull the trigger was recessed into the handle so it was almost impossible to start single handed because releasing the safety was too difficult. Returned, instantly. These things matter and not in an intangible or stupid way.
Damn. The Festool gets everything right. The box that stores the tool in such a way that it doesn't sit on the pad, and then has room so I can squeeze all my Delta sandpaper in there. The paddle switch with a tangible click. Even the Festool sandpaper. This one really caught me off guard: I thought it would be the same as the Klingspor, but the way it hooked onto the pad is unlike anything I've used thus far. These details matter.
Idk what to say. Thinking about all the time I've spent fussing around with tools and trying to get something that works, I could simply have bought the festool and been done. I'm still not convinced of the entire product lineup. Admittedly I haven't tried the tools, but I know Bosch tools are excellent, as are other German tools. Still, now they are on my radar... I guess it's worth mentioning, I've already bought another Festool, an ETS 150/3 I found at a pawn shop that I paid a price for I'm not going to mention... but it needs work and is currently in pieces in the garage. Yeah
Anyway, Hallo!
