Vlies on poly

[jimmy986]

I build furniture. I've been woodworking for about 2 years and I'm slowly building my skills. I'm looking to possibly get a new sander. As far as festool I have a track saw, domino, cxs, dx 93, and rotex 125. I feel an ets 125, and rts 400, and an rs 2 would be good. I can't think of another festool that would be a better next step unless someone suggests it. I have a Bosch random orbit I can use for now. I feel like the rs would be good for flattening my tabletops. I feel the rts would be almost as good at that but would also be good for legs( better than the round sanders since I am doing mostly straight or tapered designs) plus it would be better for the edges and any panels. Any suggestion on this would be great.

I also want something for sanding on poly. Since the rts doesn't have a clamps for other paper, flies is the highest grade paper to use. Is it good for sanding poly to get slight imperfection and leveling before moving onto hand sanding? Price is part of the reason I'm considering the rts first but if a rotex, eventual ets, and an rs would be a sufficient lineup I would save money by just spending the extra couple hundred now being somewhat complete.

 

[bertv]

I think you are all set with the Rotex you have plus the Vlies-series papers. I did some research las week and my findings are:

Vlies green: sanding in first oil layer
Vlies white: polishing second layer + waxing
Vlies A100: cleaning and light sanding
Vlies A280 + S800: degreasing, matt sanding

(Foggers, feel free to correct me and/or add to this.)

If you care to invest, I would choose a Rotex 90; that would be convenient for the legs and inside corners, esp. with the triangle base.

 

[leakyroof]

400 grit Granat or similar Mirka abrasives also work well for leveling finishes between coats.

 

[jimmy986]

Because I have a DX 93, I already have a delta pad for corners. The RTS and RS looked good for leveling tops, and the RTS for us in vertical positions like edges or case pieces.

 

[rst]

I'm an old time finisher, 1971 on, started my journey at a custom cabinet factory using laquers.  We sprayed water on every thing but pine (splotching), stained by hand, sprayed with sanding sealer, sanded with 220, sprayed with finish laquer, sanded with 320, sprayed again, sanded wet with oil and 400, then 0000 steel wool, Jonhson's paste foor wax and extra fine conditoning pads- vlies.  I still pretty much still use the same process only with water base Poly and no longer use steel.