Having hand scraped risers for over 25 years, I've grown quite tired of refinishing staircases particularly risers but even stair treads are time consuming and labor intensive. In the past and as an apprentice I spent days hand scraping and sanding risers prior to finishing (dark stain being the most difficult of course). I have been lusting after the RO 90 for months waited for a paying project to justly the expense. I must say I'm very impressed and happy with my purchase and the performance of both the sander and the new (to me) Garnet paper which did a great job of stripping 80 year old finish off softwood risers and a rectangular scotia molding I've never seen on a stair case. The RO 90 is so compact that it fit under the stair nosing and in this case even the square scotia.
The sander works great and reduces the area of finish to be hand scraped to less than 2 sq. inches. While everyone on the crew wanted to play (i mean work) with the new toy, i mean tool, I was particularly impressed when my lead mechanic swore to buy one. While he likes the Rotex 150 and the ETS 150 he's never before committed to buying his own Festool and the fact that he is so excited speaks volumes to me. What is also so appealing to me is the size is so perfect for most stairs allowing me to do a pass at the top of the riser and one at the bottom in this case the exposed riser was less than 6" high after the scotia molding took up an inch and half. So i did not have to worry about doing a pass in the middle of the riser with the risk of altering the plane of the riser. I may consider buying a 5" sander just to flatten out risers as this narrow of a rise is somewhat unusual and with the RO 90 I can actually make money refinishing stairs without burning out my crew. And as is usually true with any new festool purchase I want to use it myself for a while before turning it over to the crew.
Like all sanders, especially on vertical surfaces, this is a two handed tool for serious operation. I had to emphasize this to my newest helper ( I recently learned that most people have to be told new information 7-10 times before actually integrating it) this was a watershed meme for me, I used to think the number was 3. It’s not, now I know most people do require new information being repeated 7-10 times before altering their behavior. Nothing like changing my expectations to improve my mood. . . . And once I trained my crew to keep it flat and use a little pressure (not allot, just enough to get the abrasive to cut the finish) maybe 5 pounds, it works amazingly well and fast. Of course I seem to be able to run any tool faster than my crew, but so it goes. . .
I'm very satisfied with my purchase even more so than my regular pride and satisfaction I expect to feel with any Festool purchase. I also managed to pick up a set of the hand sanding blocks with the mini systainer and again was impressed with the quality and ergonomics of both the RO 90 and the hand sander blocks, I was thinking i was indulging myself with a hard to justify, somewhat expensive set of hand sanding blocks but with the case it's a good deal and i really like all of them even having to buy paper for the rectangular block. I like being able to fully utilize my used 150 mm paper on the hand sanding blocks and get the most out of what i consider the finest abrasives I’ve used in 30 years. I swore by 3M Regalite but find the Festool line of abrasives much better and of course a little finer grit due to the European grading system being different.
I'm now far more willing to bid on jobs with lot's of stairs and risers and even look forward to doing the work, this tool has revolutionized the task of refinishing risers, the most labor intensive and tedious part of floor work in my experience. I can’t wait to see how it works on a maple staircase I’m doing next month. Actually I don’t expect any major changes, it anything it should be easier, sanding fir or other very soft wood is the most difficult of all common floor materials.
In addition it's worth using to knock out the floor corners after i edge them with a 7" edger, the 90 mm takes off another 50% of the area of the corner making scraping corners faster and easier especially if a apprentice technician "digs" the sander into the corner. The Ro 90 gets in there and makes for a much smoother transition to the corner.
Finally the sander came with a sample of nylon mesh abrasives that worked amazingly well for inter-coat abrasion taking off almost zero sealer while knocking off almost all dust or contaminants (tiny splinters of wood) leaving a substantially greater film of finish and yet a wonderfully smooth, debris free base for my second coat. I was so impressed I used the 7" knock out from my maroon buffer pads on my ETS 150 for abrading the treads and it worked great and saved allot of time and fully utilized the entire pad that is often underutilized. I had no problem jut putting onto the hook face of the sander and the projecting edge was really no problem as it did not slip or deform at low speeds nor damage the adjacent finish`. I may start using this exclusively rather than abrasive paper for inter coat abrasion on my edges even though i may cut them down to avoid buffing the base board, although that may not be a bad idea as it will get any loose paint chips off the base board before vacuuming rather than falling into the finish when i cut in the edges before my final coat, a pet peeve of poorly prepped base boards usually found in once rented units, painted with latex over old oil base without proper preparation by decades of low bid painters or renters. I always prepare my clients for base board touch up [excepting new cabinet kicks] it's almost inevitable to have some marks left by hand scraping the edges or mechanics actually running the edger against the base unless one is really careful and goes slowly, which is difficult with pressure to bid low and go fast.
Actually there is no excuse for marking baseboards when refinishing floors but it's a time and care issue that is challenging to instill in someone running an edger for more than a few hours a day, absolutely the most back and knee destroying work in floor refinishing. And when someone is running an edger 6 or more hours a day under pressure to make two passes in a 1500+ sq. ft. house in a day, it's going to happen and for me the key is to prepare the client for it and to keep it to a minimum so there is as little "touch up" later as possible. Ideally of course the base is painted after the floor is refinished so it's less of an issue.
The sander works great and reduces the area of finish to be hand scraped to less than 2 sq. inches. While everyone on the crew wanted to play (i mean work) with the new toy, i mean tool, I was particularly impressed when my lead mechanic swore to buy one. While he likes the Rotex 150 and the ETS 150 he's never before committed to buying his own Festool and the fact that he is so excited speaks volumes to me. What is also so appealing to me is the size is so perfect for most stairs allowing me to do a pass at the top of the riser and one at the bottom in this case the exposed riser was less than 6" high after the scotia molding took up an inch and half. So i did not have to worry about doing a pass in the middle of the riser with the risk of altering the plane of the riser. I may consider buying a 5" sander just to flatten out risers as this narrow of a rise is somewhat unusual and with the RO 90 I can actually make money refinishing stairs without burning out my crew. And as is usually true with any new festool purchase I want to use it myself for a while before turning it over to the crew.
Like all sanders, especially on vertical surfaces, this is a two handed tool for serious operation. I had to emphasize this to my newest helper ( I recently learned that most people have to be told new information 7-10 times before actually integrating it) this was a watershed meme for me, I used to think the number was 3. It’s not, now I know most people do require new information being repeated 7-10 times before altering their behavior. Nothing like changing my expectations to improve my mood. . . . And once I trained my crew to keep it flat and use a little pressure (not allot, just enough to get the abrasive to cut the finish) maybe 5 pounds, it works amazingly well and fast. Of course I seem to be able to run any tool faster than my crew, but so it goes. . .
I'm very satisfied with my purchase even more so than my regular pride and satisfaction I expect to feel with any Festool purchase. I also managed to pick up a set of the hand sanding blocks with the mini systainer and again was impressed with the quality and ergonomics of both the RO 90 and the hand sander blocks, I was thinking i was indulging myself with a hard to justify, somewhat expensive set of hand sanding blocks but with the case it's a good deal and i really like all of them even having to buy paper for the rectangular block. I like being able to fully utilize my used 150 mm paper on the hand sanding blocks and get the most out of what i consider the finest abrasives I’ve used in 30 years. I swore by 3M Regalite but find the Festool line of abrasives much better and of course a little finer grit due to the European grading system being different.
I'm now far more willing to bid on jobs with lot's of stairs and risers and even look forward to doing the work, this tool has revolutionized the task of refinishing risers, the most labor intensive and tedious part of floor work in my experience. I can’t wait to see how it works on a maple staircase I’m doing next month. Actually I don’t expect any major changes, it anything it should be easier, sanding fir or other very soft wood is the most difficult of all common floor materials.
In addition it's worth using to knock out the floor corners after i edge them with a 7" edger, the 90 mm takes off another 50% of the area of the corner making scraping corners faster and easier especially if a apprentice technician "digs" the sander into the corner. The Ro 90 gets in there and makes for a much smoother transition to the corner.
Finally the sander came with a sample of nylon mesh abrasives that worked amazingly well for inter-coat abrasion taking off almost zero sealer while knocking off almost all dust or contaminants (tiny splinters of wood) leaving a substantially greater film of finish and yet a wonderfully smooth, debris free base for my second coat. I was so impressed I used the 7" knock out from my maroon buffer pads on my ETS 150 for abrading the treads and it worked great and saved allot of time and fully utilized the entire pad that is often underutilized. I had no problem jut putting onto the hook face of the sander and the projecting edge was really no problem as it did not slip or deform at low speeds nor damage the adjacent finish`. I may start using this exclusively rather than abrasive paper for inter coat abrasion on my edges even though i may cut them down to avoid buffing the base board, although that may not be a bad idea as it will get any loose paint chips off the base board before vacuuming rather than falling into the finish when i cut in the edges before my final coat, a pet peeve of poorly prepped base boards usually found in once rented units, painted with latex over old oil base without proper preparation by decades of low bid painters or renters. I always prepare my clients for base board touch up [excepting new cabinet kicks] it's almost inevitable to have some marks left by hand scraping the edges or mechanics actually running the edger against the base unless one is really careful and goes slowly, which is difficult with pressure to bid low and go fast.
Actually there is no excuse for marking baseboards when refinishing floors but it's a time and care issue that is challenging to instill in someone running an edger for more than a few hours a day, absolutely the most back and knee destroying work in floor refinishing. And when someone is running an edger 6 or more hours a day under pressure to make two passes in a 1500+ sq. ft. house in a day, it's going to happen and for me the key is to prepare the client for it and to keep it to a minimum so there is as little "touch up" later as possible. Ideally of course the base is painted after the floor is refinished so it's less of an issue.
