Just Bill said:
I have an older ETS 150/3 (3mm stroke) that I have used since 2011 as my only sander. It works great for final sanding grits, but it isn't the best for fast and aggressive removal of planer marks and snipe, or leveling out glued up panels. I would like to like to get an additional sander that is more aggressive to use along with the ETS 150/3.
I was considering either the ETS 150/5 (5mm stroke) or the RO 150.
I'm wondering how much more aggressive the 150/5 would be compared to my old 150/3? Is it a lot better for removing planer marks and leveling out glued up panels? Or would I wish that I had spent twice the money and bought a RO 150?
Thanks for any help!
A belt sander is prolly the fastest, most efficient means of flattening/evening up wide panels & glue-ups.
Mebbe your technique/s require revision. Try using it like a jack plane - the other (hand) tool that's effective & efficient for flattening wide panels - by using it at an angle. I usually work the two 45 degree angles initially for evening up the inevitable ridges, steps & troughs, before sanding (or planing with Try & Smoothing planes) with the grain. NEVER follow up any sanding operation with handplanes or scrapers. The embedded abrasive grits will rapidly destroy any hard-won sharp edges of your hand tool/s. However, vice-versa is fine: i.e. following up a Jack plane flattening with a sander.
With grits available down to an ultra-aggressive 24G there's nothing (in my experience) faster at getting rid of those annoying "steps" between planks. One of the Holz-Her/Metabo/AEG/Atlas Copco/Milwaukee/Wolf/Kango/Wuerth/Festool belt sander clones, when fitted with their amazing sanding frames, makes for remarkably effective progress. With an appropriately adjusted frame fitted, your belt sander becomes sufficiently delicate for veneers (with a super-fine grit belt), but also a remarkably rapid abrader (with the coarsest belts). In essence, the addition of a frame all-but eliminates the machines' lateral gouging tendencies.
The combination of an efficient 8mm orbit and 40G Abranet HD ceramic mesh makes the super-lightweight Mirka DEROS superior even to the otherwise excellent Festo/ol Rotex 150 (using rotary mode) in material removal. Given that there's also 5.0mm & 2.5mm DEROS models available too, these sanders will cover almost all contingencies whilst using a common suite of compatible mesh abrasives. Using mesh abrasive allows far superior dust extraction than conventional abrasive types. The DEROS & DEOS sanding family makes all others (at least all that I've used) seem pretty primitive in comparison. With the exception of my big BS105E belt sander, all my other (6) Festo/ol sanders have gone the way of the Dodo with me.
In regard to the relative cleanliness & extraction of a belt sander, most good ones that Ive used over the years (Festool, Makita, Bosch, Hitachi et. al.) have been fitted as standard with a reasonably effective dustbag, which of course requires not just a good, regular shakeout but an additional vigorous "flogging" against another surface, such as one's hand, to remove the finest dust "flour" out of the filter material's interstices. Obviously, external vacuum extraction increases dust removal and reduces downtime remarkably.
Abrasive belts will eventually clog & the aluminium oxide & silicone carbide grits will eventually lose sharpness & shed too, which will progressively reduce efficiency. Nevertheless, the regular & judicious application of either an "abrasive eraser" or a short length of PVC water pipe to the running belt will extend belt life exponentially.
Hope this helps.
