Rotex vs. Rasps

[John Stevens]

I own a Rotex sander, but I also own Nicholson #49 and #50 rasps.  My question for those of you who also own these tools is:  Do you use the Rotex to shape furniture legs or similar curved parts?  If so, what are the relative strengths and weaknesses of the Rotex vs rasps when it comes to speed, control and dust?  Are there any other considerations that are important to your choice of tool?

What type of paper do you use for shaping wood with the Rotex--Rubin, Saphir, Cristal?  Grits?

Regards,

John

 

[T. Michael]

I too am looking for an answer to this one. 

I keep buying tools and discs looking for ways to do this in a controlled, yet fast manner for a person with low experience (skills?) to shape a rocking chair project that has sat on various parts of my workshop for two (at least) years. 

In addition to my Rotex, I bought the anti kickback steel Excalibur carving disk for my rotary grinder, metal working 36 grit flexible sanding discs and backer for the same tool, got the Japanese rasps that look like 20 hacksaw blades bent and riveted together into a file shape, etc. 

But a bit nervous about hacking into the maple. 

Just need to practice I'm sure, and be willing to live with smaller wood parts if I make a mistake.

Mike

 

[Jesse Cloud]

Interesting question.

For shaping furniture legs, I make a template out of 1/4 mdf, mark the shape of the leg with pencil on the stock, bandsaw 1/16 proud, clean up with a pattern bit in a router.  Then a little sanding to remove machine marks, maybe a rasp or file in hard to get to places.

For freehand sculptural shaping I use an angle grinder, tried the Rotex with 80g rubin but it was too slow.  Of course the dust was a nightmare, would only do that outdoors.

 

[Lou Miller]

I don't do many furniture legs and stuff, but I do tons and tons of scribing. Some of the homes I work in are well over 200 years old (some of our European friends here might think that's brand new ), so nothing is even close to being straight. I use the rotex for about 90% of all my shaping needs. I might do some fine tuning with hand tools, but the bulk of everything is done with the rotex. I'm doing a job right now in a house where all the corners are plaster with wire mesh. I assume they thought it was a cool design or something, but all the corners are rounded. We're setting cabinets, counters, etc into the corners and we have to substantially round everyone of them. The customer is ultra fussy so everything has to fit like a glove. The Rotex has been the perfect tool for that job. If it can do that, I'm sure it can tackle furniture legs pretty well also.

 

[Dongar]

Hi Lou
I use the ras 115 sander with 24 or 36 grit rubin paper for this kind of work. It is basically a slow speed angle grinder (the speed optimised for wood and paint removal).Once you get the hang of the dust control you can collect most of the dust.It also works well for coping joints.The new paper (saphir ?) would probably work better.
Donald

 

[clintholeman]

I own a Rotex sander, but I also own Nicholson #49 and #50 rasps.  My question for those of you who also own these tools is:  Do you use the Rotex to shape furniture legs or similar curved parts?  If so, what are the relative strengths and weaknesses of the Rotex vs rasps when it comes to speed, control and dust?  Are there any other considerations that are important to your choice of tool?

What type of paper do you use for shaping wood with the Rotex--Rubin, Saphir, Cristal?  Grits?

Regards,

John

I use my Rotex for a lot of my work. I also find spokeshaves and planes work very well for shaping - spokeshaves work very well and quickly on curved pieces. 

I use my jig saw [a Trion PS 300, as I don't have a bandsaw] or my AT 65.  I also find, for nicely tapered Shaker style legs, my planer works well and quickly.

I use lots of Rubin sand paper from 50 grit up.

 

[Loren Hedahl]

[/quote]

I use my Rotex for a lot of my work. I also find spokeshaves and planes work very well for shaping - spokeshaves work very well and quickly on curved pieces. 

I use my jig saw [a Trion PS 300, as I don't have a bandsaw] or my AT 65.  I also find, for nicely tapered Shaker style legs, my planer works well and quickly.

I use lots of Rubin sand paper from 50 grit up.
[/quote]

Clint

I check into your blog fairly regularly and am amazed at what you produce in the space and with the tooling you have.

Did you start out by accumulating all the "heavy iron" type tools, then dispose of them one-by-one as you learned  --  -- ? 

or did you dispose of the big stuff all at once to retool with Festool  --  -- ?

or did you start off with Festool from the get-go  --  -- ?

I was just wondering how you got where you are, tool-wise and system-wise.

Loren