As requested [cool]
First off, this is an apology for a long post. I hope you will persevere with it, hopefully it will make sense. [scared]
Well, I have spent another good few hours today using the RO125 and I have come to some conclusions. Now these conclusions have come about through my own trials, use and what suits me and may well not work for someone else or with a different machine even of the same type.
I split the spare slat I had made into 2 halves using painter's tape and proceeded to sand one end with the Festool Rubin2 discs and finishing with a Brilliant2 disc, the Rubin2's were 60g, 100g, 180g and the Brilliant2 was 320g. I went through all grits from low to high and with rotary and then orbital modes for each before progressing to a finer grit size. The board looks and feels great. But, I did have some moments when the sander seemed to go wild and I also had a lot of squiggly lines from the orbital sanding to contend with (more of that later).
I sanded the other end of the slat using the aftermarket 'Festool holed' discs and one of each of the remaining mesh discs, these were Starcke 40g & 80g and the mesh used were 120g, 180g, 240g and 400g. I followed the same regime as above with first rotary and then orbital sanding with each grade before moving onto the next finer disc. The finish from these was similar to that of the Festool discs used and you would be hard pushed to tell the difference between them without a microscope. Again, I had a couple of wild moments and again I had little squiggly lines after each orbital sanding bout.
I would confidently say that there was very little in the difference in use of the 2 sets of discs. If I was pressed on the matter I might have to say that the aftermarket disks took a little more pressure to keep them in check, but there wasn’t really very much in it.
I also did some sanding on a larger board to try to get a feel for the machine over a wider space.
So, what did I discover? A few things actually, I will document them all, as they may (or may not) help others who have had issues with their Rotex Sanders, but if nothing else it may give them a place to start to sort out any issues they themselves may have.
Firstly, in Rotary mode it is a good idea to use both hands to hold and guide the machine. Whilst there are occasions when you could possibly sand in the rotary position using only one hand it would be much more likely to have a ‘wild spell’ the moment it came across something it didn’t like.
Secondly, the amount and duration of ‘wild spells’ seemed to be consistent and proportional with how poorly the board was clamped down. This was more apparent in the slat as whilst it was held firmly in the middle in the clamps of one of my Keter Workbenches, being just shy of 5ft long meant that there was probably a good 15-18” of overhang and as the sander moved along these areas it was much more difficult to control and was quite likely to bounce. This was not the case in the middle of the slat where it was safely secured. This was also worse with the larger grit sizes.
Thirdly, if the sander was proceeding along a board and there was a severe change in grain direction or a heartwood to sapwood area again it became more difficult to control, this was not as bad as the situation with the not so well secured board but something to be aware of.
The fourth thing I discovered was that in the Rotary mode (using any grit or type of disc) it was much easier to control if the sander was flat on the surface when moving the sander from side to side (left to right or right to left) than it was moving it forward to back or vice versa or even diagonally. I do not understand why this should be so, but I tried it many times and each time gave similar results.
For large amounts of material removal in rotary mode, it seemed best to move the Rotex forward across the area you want to take down whilst slightly increasing the pressure at the front of the Rotex either by pressing harder with the hand directly over the sanding head or by lifting slightly the handle with your other hand. This causes the sanding disc to be slightly tilted and increases the amount of material removed at any one time at the front of the sanding disk. Whilst carrying out this trial I did not have any ‘wild moments’ at all.
I then played around with the sander in Orbital mode to try to find a way to remove the squiggly lines left by the use of this mode. Eventually, I worked it out. I was getting the squiggly line in the orbital mode as I was also moving the sander across the wood in an orbital type motion, sort of like you would do if you were French polishing (lots of little circles). Whether this is commonly known or not, as soon as I started with the sander in the orbital sanding mode and only moved across the board or slat in straight lines (typically I went right to left, don’t know why, just seemed to be the way I did it most often) either from side to side or up or down, there were no squiggly lines left behind. Magic! The best results were obtained when actually sanding with or even against the grain as opposed to going across the grain.
I did have the odd ‘wild moment’ in Orbital mode, but these again were usually where there was a change in the wood within the board and only when using it with a single hand so not having full control, not really the machines fault.
Of the discs I tried today, I had no real issues with any of them. The two packs of Starcke (German with Festool hole pattern) discs seem very good and were about 60% of the price of Rubin2s and I have since found another supplier who also sells sanding discs with a Festool hole pattern, and have ordered a couple of boxes of them to try out (these are only about 30% of the cost of the Rubin2s) I will do a like for like test of them all once I receive them.
My conclusions (for me and this Rotex) are that whilst the media used might have a slight bearing on any issues, it is more probable that it is how the operator interacts with the machine that can make the biggest difference to it in use. My trials over the last couple of days have given me a great starting point with this particular Rotex as they have forced me to spend some quality time with this machine and try to get to know its strengths and weaknesses, and hopefully may also help others with issues they might have with their own machines, and, as I said earlier if not, possibly give them a starting point for their own trials.
Just one other thing, can anybody suggest the best way of cleaning a Rotex? Mine now looks like its 3 years old already. [eek]
First off, this is an apology for a long post. I hope you will persevere with it, hopefully it will make sense. [scared]
Well, I have spent another good few hours today using the RO125 and I have come to some conclusions. Now these conclusions have come about through my own trials, use and what suits me and may well not work for someone else or with a different machine even of the same type.
I split the spare slat I had made into 2 halves using painter's tape and proceeded to sand one end with the Festool Rubin2 discs and finishing with a Brilliant2 disc, the Rubin2's were 60g, 100g, 180g and the Brilliant2 was 320g. I went through all grits from low to high and with rotary and then orbital modes for each before progressing to a finer grit size. The board looks and feels great. But, I did have some moments when the sander seemed to go wild and I also had a lot of squiggly lines from the orbital sanding to contend with (more of that later).
I sanded the other end of the slat using the aftermarket 'Festool holed' discs and one of each of the remaining mesh discs, these were Starcke 40g & 80g and the mesh used were 120g, 180g, 240g and 400g. I followed the same regime as above with first rotary and then orbital sanding with each grade before moving onto the next finer disc. The finish from these was similar to that of the Festool discs used and you would be hard pushed to tell the difference between them without a microscope. Again, I had a couple of wild moments and again I had little squiggly lines after each orbital sanding bout.
I would confidently say that there was very little in the difference in use of the 2 sets of discs. If I was pressed on the matter I might have to say that the aftermarket disks took a little more pressure to keep them in check, but there wasn’t really very much in it.
I also did some sanding on a larger board to try to get a feel for the machine over a wider space.
So, what did I discover? A few things actually, I will document them all, as they may (or may not) help others who have had issues with their Rotex Sanders, but if nothing else it may give them a place to start to sort out any issues they themselves may have.
Firstly, in Rotary mode it is a good idea to use both hands to hold and guide the machine. Whilst there are occasions when you could possibly sand in the rotary position using only one hand it would be much more likely to have a ‘wild spell’ the moment it came across something it didn’t like.
Secondly, the amount and duration of ‘wild spells’ seemed to be consistent and proportional with how poorly the board was clamped down. This was more apparent in the slat as whilst it was held firmly in the middle in the clamps of one of my Keter Workbenches, being just shy of 5ft long meant that there was probably a good 15-18” of overhang and as the sander moved along these areas it was much more difficult to control and was quite likely to bounce. This was not the case in the middle of the slat where it was safely secured. This was also worse with the larger grit sizes.
Thirdly, if the sander was proceeding along a board and there was a severe change in grain direction or a heartwood to sapwood area again it became more difficult to control, this was not as bad as the situation with the not so well secured board but something to be aware of.
The fourth thing I discovered was that in the Rotary mode (using any grit or type of disc) it was much easier to control if the sander was flat on the surface when moving the sander from side to side (left to right or right to left) than it was moving it forward to back or vice versa or even diagonally. I do not understand why this should be so, but I tried it many times and each time gave similar results.
For large amounts of material removal in rotary mode, it seemed best to move the Rotex forward across the area you want to take down whilst slightly increasing the pressure at the front of the Rotex either by pressing harder with the hand directly over the sanding head or by lifting slightly the handle with your other hand. This causes the sanding disc to be slightly tilted and increases the amount of material removed at any one time at the front of the sanding disk. Whilst carrying out this trial I did not have any ‘wild moments’ at all.
I then played around with the sander in Orbital mode to try to find a way to remove the squiggly lines left by the use of this mode. Eventually, I worked it out. I was getting the squiggly line in the orbital mode as I was also moving the sander across the wood in an orbital type motion, sort of like you would do if you were French polishing (lots of little circles). Whether this is commonly known or not, as soon as I started with the sander in the orbital sanding mode and only moved across the board or slat in straight lines (typically I went right to left, don’t know why, just seemed to be the way I did it most often) either from side to side or up or down, there were no squiggly lines left behind. Magic! The best results were obtained when actually sanding with or even against the grain as opposed to going across the grain.
I did have the odd ‘wild moment’ in Orbital mode, but these again were usually where there was a change in the wood within the board and only when using it with a single hand so not having full control, not really the machines fault.
Of the discs I tried today, I had no real issues with any of them. The two packs of Starcke (German with Festool hole pattern) discs seem very good and were about 60% of the price of Rubin2s and I have since found another supplier who also sells sanding discs with a Festool hole pattern, and have ordered a couple of boxes of them to try out (these are only about 30% of the cost of the Rubin2s) I will do a like for like test of them all once I receive them.
My conclusions (for me and this Rotex) are that whilst the media used might have a slight bearing on any issues, it is more probable that it is how the operator interacts with the machine that can make the biggest difference to it in use. My trials over the last couple of days have given me a great starting point with this particular Rotex as they have forced me to spend some quality time with this machine and try to get to know its strengths and weaknesses, and hopefully may also help others with issues they might have with their own machines, and, as I said earlier if not, possibly give them a starting point for their own trials.
Just one other thing, can anybody suggest the best way of cleaning a Rotex? Mine now looks like its 3 years old already. [eek]
