New to Festool recently bought a dust extractor and a few sanders (posted in separate thread). Well today spent a few hours with the Rotex RO150 and CT36 E. Very happy with both products and glad I made purchase overall.
Sanding a floor in an enclosed front porch. Have no idea how old it is but would have to guess at least 50 - 75 years. I believe the wood floor is red oak, but grain seems a bit tighter than normal and wood is extremely hard. Not sure if its due to age or the previous finish or combination of both.
Hit it with the Rotex in Rotary mode. Tried several combinations of paper including Saphir 36 and Granite 60, 80 & 100 at various speeds. Settled in with the 60 at about 4 - 4-1/2. I went through paper faster than expected although paper appeared to have a lot of life still left in it was definitely not cutting very well after about 15 sq ft of floor. Just changed out the paper frequently and job went pretty quick. The floor was not perfectly flat and level so needed to feather edges a bit to remove the prior stain. I was putting a fair amount of weight on machine and found the easiest material removal was if I put slightly more pressure on heel of pad (near dust collection port) and then came back over material with machine held flat.
Very impressed with speed of material removal (with fresh paper) and dust collection is much better than I thought possible. Extremely happy with the dust extraction I think it is the best I've ever seen or used. There was hardly any dust left on surface and nothing noticeable in air as I've experienced with other sanders and vacuums before. Vibration wasn't too bad and machine ran for about 3-1/2 hours straight without a hiccup. The sander was much louder than I expected, I definitely should have been wearing ear pro. Will be sure to bring some along tomorrow.
Going to hit floor again tomorrow with 60 on random orbit, then 80 followed by 100. May or not take it to 120. Hopefully will be putting coat of stain on tomorrow.
Before...
After first pass...
Sanding a floor in an enclosed front porch. Have no idea how old it is but would have to guess at least 50 - 75 years. I believe the wood floor is red oak, but grain seems a bit tighter than normal and wood is extremely hard. Not sure if its due to age or the previous finish or combination of both.
Hit it with the Rotex in Rotary mode. Tried several combinations of paper including Saphir 36 and Granite 60, 80 & 100 at various speeds. Settled in with the 60 at about 4 - 4-1/2. I went through paper faster than expected although paper appeared to have a lot of life still left in it was definitely not cutting very well after about 15 sq ft of floor. Just changed out the paper frequently and job went pretty quick. The floor was not perfectly flat and level so needed to feather edges a bit to remove the prior stain. I was putting a fair amount of weight on machine and found the easiest material removal was if I put slightly more pressure on heel of pad (near dust collection port) and then came back over material with machine held flat.
Very impressed with speed of material removal (with fresh paper) and dust collection is much better than I thought possible. Extremely happy with the dust extraction I think it is the best I've ever seen or used. There was hardly any dust left on surface and nothing noticeable in air as I've experienced with other sanders and vacuums before. Vibration wasn't too bad and machine ran for about 3-1/2 hours straight without a hiccup. The sander was much louder than I expected, I definitely should have been wearing ear pro. Will be sure to bring some along tomorrow.
Going to hit floor again tomorrow with 60 on random orbit, then 80 followed by 100. May or not take it to 120. Hopefully will be putting coat of stain on tomorrow.
Before...
After first pass...
