New to forum, stone refinishing

[Absolute Stone Polishing]

Hello all, my name is Brian and am new to this forum I specialize in stone refinishing and have incorporated festool into my operation is there any other stone refinishers on this forum?  Looking forward to learning more about Festool.  [big grin]

 

[Ken Nagrod]

[welcome] to the FOG Brian!

 

[Kev]

Welcome Brian.

I't be great to know what Festools you use for various stone work.

Kev.

 

[mouppe]

Welcome Brian.

I't be great to know what Festools you use for various stone work.

Kev.

Obviously he uses Granat.  [tongue]

 

[Absolute Stone Polishing]

Welcome Brian.

I't be great to know what Festools you use for various stone work.

Kev.

I have indeed been using the Granat paper on the rotex 125.  With stone refinishing obviously the sanders are used the most, but I see lots of potencial with Festool in the stone industry the ability to do things dry and dustfree is huge.  I generally don't have the luxury of a using a shop.  I will say that I blocked off a day in a half to refinish a marble shower and got it done 2 HOURS set up to cleanup.  Couldn't believe it [eek].  Only problem was the job was priced on a day rate, so I had to take a day off  [thumbs up].  Anyway I'm still doing lots of testing I have been retro fitting diamonds and different grit brushes to my machine with good success, only problem is that testing gets expensive after awhile.  Luckily I live 20 min away from the indianapolis office and they were nice enough to give me some old backers to play around with.

 

[Steve R]

[welcome]

I'm looking forward to any activity on this topic.

Cheers,
Steve

 

[Absolute Stone Polishing]

[welcome]

I'm looking forward to any activity on this topic.

Cheers,
Steve

Hey Steve  [smile]

Have you done much with Festool on stone?

 

[Steve R]

[welcome]

I'm looking forward to any activity on this topic.

Cheers,
Steve

Hey Steve  [smile]

Have you done much with Festool on stone?

No, which is why I would like to learn more... I'm sure down the road I will encounter times when I will need to.

Cheers,
Steve

 

[greg mann]

Looks like we may learn more from you than the other way round. I think the RAS has a lot of potential for stone work, albeit a tad more dusty than an RO. It should work quite nicely with diamond abrasives if you can configure them for it. I look forward to your contributions on stone work. That is an area only lightly touched upon here and it would be nice to develop a body of knowledge on it to add to the more traditional uses for Festools.

 

[Steve R]

Looks like we may learn more from you than the other way round. I think the RAS has a lot of potential for stone work, albeit a tad more dusty than an RO. It should work quite nicely with diamond abrasives if you can configure them for it. I look forward to your contributions on stone work. That is an area only lightly touched upon here and it would be nice to develop a body of knowledge on it to add to the more traditional uses for Festools.

+1, Well said greg mann!

Cheers,
Steve

 

[Absolute Stone Polishing]

Looks like we may learn more from you than the other way round. I think the RAS has a lot of potential for stone work, albeit a tad more dusty than an RO. It should work quite nicely with diamond abrasives if you can configure them for it. I look forward to your contributions on stone work. That is an area only lightly touched upon here and it would be nice to develop a body of knowledge on it to add to the more traditional uses for Festools.

Ya I would be more than happy to answer any questions.  The RAS would be the tool of choice, most people in my industry use makita 9227c or the Milwaukee 5460 I use both depending on the application.  In regards to the RAS I haven't had the opportunity to demo one and would love to do so.  The only thing I did notice while looking at the specs is that it's lowest setting is at 800 rpm's and I like to slow down to at least 600 rpm's, but I do like the weight at 9 1/4, great for floors and countertops. I like the Milwaukee because you can bear down on it and slow it up even more, the polisher doesn't heat up and just keeps on motoring through it which the RAS may do as well not sure.  I need to get a demo and spend a day on a job with it, if I like it I'd buy.  I like how the vac is set up as well, doing things dry in my industry again is huge, but as for now my Makita is going on 6 yrs without a hiccup.  I invested in the RO more so for stock removal, honing and showers, I've retrofitted an electroplated diamond (just drilled vac holes in the pad) to do so or use around a 220 granat paper when working on floors or countertops, 800 on honed shower surface and 1200 on polished shower surface.  I've been honing up to 1200 granat and polishing thereafter with a dry polishing compound technique, which is a perfect fit for using the Festool system.  I fell in love from day one and am excited to see what I can do with different tooling.

 

[JeromeM]

Welcome Brian.

I't be great to know what Festools you use for various stone work.

Kev.

I have indeed been using the Granat paper on the rotex 125.  With stone refinishing obviously the sanders are used the most, but I see lots of potencial with Festool in the stone industry the ability to do things dry and dustfree is huge.  I generally don't have the luxury of a using a shop.  I will say that I blocked off a day in a half to refinish a marble shower and got it done 2 HOURS set up to cleanup.  Couldn't believe it [eek].  Only problem was the job was priced on a day rate, so I had to take a day off  [thumbs up].  Anyway I'm still doing lots of testing I have been retro fitting diamonds and different grit brushes to my machine with good success, only problem is that testing gets expensive after awhile.  Luckily I live 20 min away from the indianapolis office and they were nice enough to give me some old backers to play around with.

with the diamond have you tried any thing like the pads from here http://richontools.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=3_25 on any Festool sanders?

 

[Absolute Stone Polishing]

Welcome Brian.

I't be great to know what Festools you use for various stone work.

Kev.

I have indeed been using the Granat paper on the rotex 125.  With stone refinishing obviously the sanders are used the most, but I see lots of potencial with Festool in the stone industry the ability to do things dry and dustfree is huge.  I generally don't have the luxury of a using a shop.  I will say that I blocked off a day in a half to refinish a marble shower and got it done 2 HOURS set up to cleanup.  Couldn't believe it [eek].  Only problem was the job was priced on a day rate, so I had to take a day off  [thumbs up].  Anyway I'm still doing lots of testing I have been retro fitting diamonds and different grit brushes to my machine with good success, only problem is that testing gets expensive after awhile.  Luckily I live 20 min away from the indianapolis office and they were nice enough to give me some old backers to play around with.

with the diamond have you tried any thing like the pads from here http://richontools.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=3_25 on any Festool sanders?

Those pads are more geared towards edge polishing, which a trained monkey can handle.  When your talking stone refinishing its important to use high quality diamonds for example diamonds from Italy and bulgaria.  I have some on my website absolutestonepolishingandrepair.com go to care and maintainance section the pro area.  Those diamonds will work for certain applications but I would go with something different.  I'd go with the 50 100 200 400 800 1500 3000.  Polishing on the surface is different than polishing on the edge is much different than polishing on the edge.  Long story short those pads are basically what ya need, when talking diamonds.  Phone calls normally work better for explaining this stuff, sorry  [big grin]  its a lot to take in, but I'll do my best to explain as questions come.

 

[Tinker]

Absolute Stone Polishing,  There have been other discussions about using Festools for stone work  I have usually come out as somewhat less than encouraging in my replies.  I am following your discussion here with grate interest  and learning.

I have been out of the biz for over 30 years now (almost as long as I was in it).  There is so much that has changed during the interim.  Even tho i am no longer capable of handling such work, i still have an ongoing interest.  Thanks for the education. From now on, i will have to check back to you before replying with my own advice about stone.

Tinker  (retired from the trade in 1981 when my chin started bumping into my knee caps.  When I started, I had been 7 feet tall)

 

[Absolute Stone Polishing]

Absolute Stone Polishing,  There have been other discussions about using Festools for stone work  I have usually come out as somewhat less than encouraging in my replies.  I am following your discussion here with grate interest  and learning.

I have been out of the biz for over 30 years now (almost as long as I was in it).  There is so much that has changed during the interim.  Even tho i am no longer capable of handling such work, i still have an ongoing interest.  Thanks for the education. From now on, i will have to check back to you before replying with my own advice about stone.

Tinker  (retired from the trade in 1981 when my chin started bumping into my knee caps.  When I started, I had been 7 feet tall)

Ya I think I lost a couple of inches from my fab/install days.  Refinishing thou not easy work is a much lighter and less tolling on the body [thumbs up].  What area of the stone business were you in for all those years?

 

[Tinker]

Most of my stone work was natural field stone building fire places and stone steps and walls.  A lot of flagstone and slate along with some work with marble and granite.  I quit doing marble when it got me into big trouble.  I met my wife on a marble fireplace facing job. It should have taken me four hours and it somehow got stretched into four days.  Been losing money on her ever since.  Courting and trapped time adds up to 47 years.  Oh well, I have survived  :
Tinker

 

[Absolute Stone Polishing]

Thats good stuff. [big grin]

 

[Tinker]

Absolute Stone,
There was a supply yard where i got nearly all my marble, slate and granite.  they would cut and polish as specified.
for all of my stone finishing, that is where i went where it would have been far too costly were i to damage any stones.  The biggest jobs they did were marble hearths and fireplace facings.  I also had them do complicated step stones, especially if I wanted a snapped edge.  The same man did my work for over twenty years and I never spotted a flaw on any of his work.  Any polishing of stone, he was the man i wanted. 

When i found out he was retiring, i went to my album and picked out all of the finished jobs he had started for me.  I put those into an album and took them to him as my gift of appreciation for all of his skill and hard work.  He was sometimes very gruff and when i was first going to him, he was not exactly pleasant with me, a young 22 year old still wet behind the ears new mason contractor. As time went on and he learned trust me as having a trace of competence of my own, he softened up and even became quite friendly.  As he thumbed thru the album, he nearly cried.  He told me that he had been cutting stone for over 40 years and even tho he was retiring, I was the only mason who ever showed him any of his completed jobs. 

I never saw him after that day and the company eventually phased out of the stone business. 
Tinker

 

[Absolute Stone Polishing]

Well thats a cool story.  Hope someone does that for me one day.

 

[beachstone]

Hello FOG members. I am a newbie to Festool. I bought a rotex 150 because I do marble refinishing and resurfacing work here in Maine. I bought it because I was tired of being the "random" in the orbit for my makita 9227c.

I recently did a marble (vermont danby) refinish due to etching. I thought I would give the RO a try. I only had diamond pads (dry alpha ceramica, and con-dri, and weha 3 step dry) pads. I started out with the 500 grit alpha, but was quite difficult to cut polish evenly. Switched to 200 alpha and seemed to work pretty well, while working, but when I wiped off I could see shiny spots still. This was frustrating to go back and try to get it all down to the same level.

To make a long story short, I don't think I saved any time by using the festool. However, I think it's because I wasn't using the right pads or paper. I intend to use electroplated pads (50/100/220) on the ro as a test to cut through the polish. I also will be testing the granat papers. I think the papers do a better job because they are designed to go back and forth and round and round. The diamond pads are really designed for a round and round polisher like all stone polishers in the world.

I like the randomness of the rotex. I do. I just need to figure out how to cut the factory polish evenly on the first run! From there, I think the rest will be history.

Has anyone tried using all granat or festool papers for honing and polishing stone??
Thank you.
Aron Buterbaugh
Owner
Beachstone Sustainable Surfaces