Originally Posted by
Will Blick
Jerome.... its best you ask this question on a Festool forum where these guys are EXPERTS at every Festool sander made, and they sure make a lot of them.....
In general, you want to match the sander to the type of work you do. First is the size of the work, that dictates the size of the pad, next is the type of work.... paint removal, rough sanding, fine sanding, etc. This dictates what stroke is best.... wide strokes produce more noticeable patterns using the same grit. You can really get caught up in all this, and often there is many sanders that will fit the bill.... for me, I have learned that trying to have a perfect sander for every task is a bit overkill.... as getting close to final smoothness and then using a few swipes with a card scraper negates much of the variances at the "fine" level. I marvel how card scraping is not a normal part of the sanding process....its a small tool with little profit, but does BIG things at the end of a sanding job. and very quickly...
as a general rule, most people start out with the Rotex sanders, as these sanders are the only ones that have two modes, both coarse and fine. They are prob. the most popular of all the sanders. they come in 150, 125, 90mm diameters. The smaller the sander, the smaller the stroke. I have the 125 and 90, and can honestly say, I am hooked, will never buy another make of sander. The dust collection is legendary, specially when paired with their vacs. Any vac can suck, but their vacs don't discharge the invisible micron particles back into the air, they have the largest HEPA filter I have ever seen on any VAC. I know they are costly, but I have never read a thread where anyone regretted the purchase. They also offer money back 30 day assurance of satisfaction. Also, the Festool line-up of sand paper is amazingly impressive, and reasonably priced as well..... jump on the FOG forum and you will get many opinions, just be sure to describe the type of work you do most, to get the best responses. If you go through with the purchase, be sure to report back to us :-)
oh, one warning.... as they say on the FOG forum, once you drink the GREEN Koolaide, its a slippery slope....I learned this the hard way.... so you have been forewarned...