Selecting a second sander

[Jesus Aleman]

Hi, my spousal-mandated to-do list includes refinishing a 100 linear feet fence, a 100ft2 of deck, and a garage door.  I am planning on power washing to remove the old stain (at least for the fence and deck) followed by sanding and a finish.  I have a 5" rotex that will take care of the large flat areas, but nothing to take of the tight areas (corners, balusters, etc).  Some may suggest hand sanding, but this is not how I want to spend the summer.   I want to buy one more sander to primarily do the above jobs and later serve as a complementary sander for general woodworking.  I have looked at the RTS, DELTEX and LS130.  Maybe the long term answer is to buy all three, but the current budget dictates only one.

I can see that the deltex overall will get into the tightest corners, smaller spaces and be more aggressive (faster?) for a re-finishing job.  However, it seems that I will be going through a lot of abrasives due to the smaller sized pad.

The LS would be perhaps the most flexible overall, great for profiles and edge treatment in general woodworking.  However, it may not be very efficient (read aggressive) to refinish the deck, fence, and door.

Which brings me to the RTS.  I've read that it can get fairly well into corners and tight spaces (obviously not as good as the deltex), is more aggressive than the LS, and you get more miles out of the abrasive because you can always rotate the 1/4 sheet to the corner that you are using.  It also appear that the pad for the DTS can be retrofitted into the RTS.

Right now I'm undecided between the deltex and RTS.  The former seems to be better for the refinishing task, but the latter seems better for general woodworking.   Opinions, please.

Thx.

JGA.

 

[Frank Pellow]

Jesus, when faced with the same decision five years ago, I chose the Deltex as my second Festool sander.  I'm not sorry.  It does a great job in the corners and I don't begrudge the use of lots of sandpaper.

By the way, as of early next week, I will have four Festool sanders.  I purchased a Duplex soon after the Deltex and a RAS 115 is on shipment to me right now.

 

[tbellemare]

Jesus:

With the Deltex, you have 3 corners to use because it is an equilateral triangle.

With the RTS, no matter which corner you are finding useful, you have only 2 to use because it is a rectangle.

The Deltex is gear driven and you can really remove some material with it if you want. It can also be used for finishing and gets into tight spaces better than any of the others.

Tom