Hi to everybody . And some advice please.

[Jaco Wessels]

Good morning everyone. My name is Jaco Wessels, I am a bowyer living in Estonia ( ex South African).

I have been reading a lot of advice here on FOG regarding the sanders. I make longbows and the materials I will sand are a variety of hardwoods combined with fibreglass and G10.

At the moment I do the rough shaping with bandsaw, then I use a small angle grinder with a P60 sanding disc. After that I use a two different files to clean up the surface and then I use a random orbital sander with P80.
I ten manually sand from P100, P180 and finally P240 before I am ready to apply the finish.

Originally I was thinking of getting a finishing sander from Festool, but as I researched, it seems that maybe one of the Rotex tools might be better for me. But I have read so much and tried to understand the differences that I seems absolutely clueless right now 

Maybe someone can offer some advice to help me make up my mind?

Much appreciated and have a great weekend.

 

[Jaco Wessels]

Oh and by the way, I already haver a Festool vacuum to use with a sander.

 

[AlexThePalex]

Hi Jaco, welcome to the forum.

Since bows are pretty thin, so I think a Rotex RO90 might suit you well. It has both a fine and an aggressive mode for fast material removal. The other Festool sanders are bigger, so I'm not sure how well they would work with thin bows.

 

[ear3]

Welcome to the forum.  The RAS 115 replicates what the angle grinder + sanding disc does pretty effectively.  It's not quite as fast as the angle grinder, but what you lose in speed you gain in better dust collection and better surface quality.  The RAS won't burn the surface the way the angle grinder does, and if you finish up with 100 grit sandpaper you get to skip a few steps when moving over to contoured sanding, as the finished surface is much smoother than you get with an angle grinder.

As Alex said, though, the RO90 is perfect for final contouring and finish sanding once the rough shape is achieved.  You would use the interface pad to follow the contours. 

If you search RAS or sculpt* on the FOG you can come up with some good examples of the RAS and the RO90 contoured sanding in action:
http://festoolownersgroup.com/festo...ng-maloof-inspired-chair/msg460400/#msg460400

 

[Vondawg]

I agree with the guys on the ro90 w/pointed interface pad, and rotary mode you could cover a lot of bases....

 

[MrToolJunkie]

I think the 90 would be a great choice too. If you want bigger for whatever reason, then the RO125 would be a good choice. The RAS is awesome and replaces a grinder for woodwork sculpting and I have not used my grinder on wood since acquiring a RAS. Great tool for rapid removal and shaping.

 

[Cheese]

[welcome] to the FOG!!!

Well...I'll cast the 5th vote for the RO 90.  [big grin]

Nice and small, easy to manipulate with one hand and all the basic operations you're performing can be handled with one machine.

A guy could be creative and create a bench mount for the RO 90 and that may make the process even easier. [cool]

I'd be interested in seeing a finished product. [smile]

 

[Jaco Wessels]

Thanks for all the input. I visited the local Festool dealer today, but unfortunately they did not have the RO 90 in stock. This is probably the sander that I will end up getting.
I will probably order it online as I can get it for €115 cheaper , which I can use to get abrasives. And the local dealer only offers a 14 day money back and a 2 year guarantee.

p.s
Cheese, you can see my work at www.timberpointarchery.com

 

[Mario Turcot]

Welcome to the FOG!

I visit your link and I'm sorry to say that but this is NOT work... this is ART

I just bought the RO 90 last week and despite it's small size it is quite heavy. Not like the other two RO options but still. The rotary mode will certainly do a great job for you. Working with the RO 90 two hands is a breeze, because of no clamping option I had to work one hand and took pause (fatigue) every 15 minutes or so. I know I'm a sissy

 

[Jaco Wessels]

Thanks for the kind words Mario.

So, I ended up ordering a RO 90 from a store in The Netherlands, together with €300's worth of abrasives 

I am very excited to start working with my new toy

 

[ear3]

Those pieces on the website are spectacular.  Would love to see a video at some point on the fabrication process.  Is that just all lamination, or do you do some inlay as well?  Are the thin lines just veneer sheets sandwiched in the middle of the lamination?

 

[Cheese]

Nice stuff [member=67068]Jaco Wessels[/member] ... [thumbs up]

 

[Jaco Wessels]

All the pieces and lines are laminated together. The thin white lines are bamboo veneers of my own making. I use a overhead drum sander to grind them to a 0.020" thickness.

Here is a link to a short video of my bow making and philosophy behind it.

Have a great weekend