My Festool Score plus A BIG GLOAT
My last minute Festool order on the 20% off new customer sale arrived last week. Yipppee, I got the package CT22 vac, saw and railguide. I also got the 150/3 sander, a systainer for the sander paper and a few hundred sheets of paper, the router, and the CDD drill, with both chucks (right angle, and offset). Total was OUCH about $1700. I was on the phone with Bob throughout the night figuring out exactly what I was going to order. Gotta tell you Bob is the most usefull and friendly tool salesman I have worked with (Eric with Minimax is a very close second, but since I have yet to buy that bandsaw Bob wins). And Christian was lots of help on this one too.
A few days after its arrival I was rising the floor in my family room (it had a 4' x 4') entrance that was just bigger than the door swing. The plan was to rip out the door raise the floor and put the door back. I also had some doors that needed the bottom cut off since we had new carpet put in other rooms.
So it was a great time to try out all the tools (though I never came up with a use for the router on this job).
LOVE the saw and rail guide system. Cutting the doors down, piece of cake, the plywood subfloor had to be cut down from its 4x8 sheet. The rail system worked great for that, and I never once thought gee this is not very safe (a somewhat often thought when I use to cut sheets on the table saw. The floor was mateing up to the existing floor, the existing was not perfectly square, so i needed some tappers on the panel I was putting down. Make 2 marks put down the rail, and cut, Perfect. The only negative is the first few cuts on the rail the black edging goes everywhere after that the vac gets all the dust. (of coarse I also found an instruction sheet laying around when I was cleaning up that said to cut the rail with a 1 speed I had it on 6 so that might have caused the problem). And that leads to the one negative on this setup The instructions are very bad. It appears they are trying to fix it with these individual sheets but then there are extra sheets for safety, and in the end its just not very good, one bad manual and lots of loose sheets of paper that you dont have time to read. It took me some time to figure out how to open the vac, and then I found my vac hose.
The systainers are great and help Festool on shipping cause everything is the same dimensions. One improvement on the sand paper systainer would be some way to mark or indicate (stickers in with the paper) what grit the paper was for each slot.
Used the sander to get the added floor joists to line up. Just sat in the door, with the vac and sander running over the board, my wife said I looked like I was on break and petting my dog. It really was really nice. Of coarse the first thing I tried was sanding the floor down, but there was glue on it and the sander was bouncing all over and not running good. Turned it off and looked the paper was one big mess of floor glue. (oops my bad). (yes Bob the Rotex would have worked faster but even the 150 /3 got the job done).
The one disappointment was the CDD the drill. This was an addtional bonus purchase for me cause some other planed purchases had fallen through. I really liked the two additonal chucks so I went for it. The drill really is great like everything else very solid and feels like it will go forever, but it just does not fit my hand well. I did get a chance this week to try out the TDD (the more traditional design), it fit nicely. I am trying to decide if I return the CDD or exchange it for the TDD.
Will let you know what I think of the router when I get the chance to use it.
Know the bonus. I have been looking at buying a classic convertible but had not found what I wanted so the plan was get the tools to use on several projects this winter, then look for the car in the spring. So what happens 1 week after the tools arrive. I find and buy whats in the pics below. So no Jorge fest for me, and why I may just wait on the drill untill festool can get the grip a bit smaller on the CDD.
Broke but with a HUGE smile
Dave
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Originally Posted by Brad Schafer
