Sander Talk: Or other tales of misery

Maker Talk
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If you were in the market for a death sander (The sander that you’re going to die with), which one would you choose? I seen the Electric 3M sanders, and they looked attractive until I saw they were burning up left and right. So that kind of leaves the Festool’s for the running option. Bosch’s as a potential runner-up?

Does the 6" make a big difference? I’ve only ever used the 5".
Rotex? ETS? What’s the difference?

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Unfortunately there isn’t one sander to rule them all. Festool Rotex are supposed to be awesome. But Surfprep is another great sander. It’s not RO, and has a smaller pad. But it specializes in being able to sand profiles without degrading them. Other sanders are offering similar now, but it’s tough for an RO to do that. For large surfaces like table tops, Rotex. For cabinet doors, furniture legs, etc, Surfprep.

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Festool Rotex aren’t RO, they’re dual-action. And quite heavy to boot. I definitely wouldn’t get one as my first sander. I have the an old ETS150/5 and it was a HUGE ergonomic improvement over the Bosch I was using prior, in both dust collection and hand vibration. Sanding performance wise it wasn’t as big a difference; technique probably matters more. If I were to do it again, I might get one of the newer ETS-EC; they’re supposed to be even easier on the hands. Keep an eye out for a demo day at Woodcraft and try them all for yourself. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s an opportunity at TWF too.

FWIW, since I picked up an ETS125, I hardly ever use the 150. The extra size just isn’t that useful that often to me. I did find it useful to pick up pads of different firmnesses - both extra-soft and extra-hard have come in handy for various projects.

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6” definitely makes a massive difference. Cuts down on time and helps keep it flatter

Festool one is great, a lot of people have a lot of good things to say about mirka but I’ve never seen one in person

Surf prep 4x3 is dope too and is orbital, great for profiles and textures

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No love for Mirka? I have never heard a bad review from the users I’ve spoken with.

I was also looking at the 3M. Sad to hear they’ve got longevity issues.

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That’s too bad about the 3M sanders. They are new to market so hopefully they’ll work out the bugs with future iterations. The high end sander market is small and so some competition is a good thing.

I have a bunch of sanders but these are my go to’s in order of most often used:

  1. Festool ETS-EC 150 (6”) 3mm stroke - Excellent finish sander. Low vibration. Automatic brake. Get the blue hard pad for keeping edges from rounding over.

  2. Surfprep 3x4 paired with their sandpaper and foam pads - My most recent purchase quickly made it into regular rotation. Excellent for profiles and narrow parts. Very light. I prefer a push button for long duration sanding (why I didn’t go with Mirka for my ROS) but the paddle on the surfprep is handy for quick spot sanding.

  3. Festool Rotex 90 (3”) - Great for small parts. Also has a triangle pad for corners.

  4. Festool Rotex 150 (6”) - Quick material removal at low grits. Also polishing at a slower speed. Get the front handle attachment.

A note on Rotex sanders: They have two settings, regular ROS and geared mode. The difference is you can stop the pad spinning with light pressure in ROS mode, while the geared mode does not stop and will shred your hand off. I will use the geared mode at low grits and then switch to ROS at higher grits. The Rotex 150 is a beast, is heavy, and can be difficult to control. I don’t recommend it as a first sander.

Sandpaper: I recently started using 3M Cubitron and found it is superior in cut quality and longevity.

Always use dust collection. The dc’s at Asmbly are decent. A dust extractor with variable speed is better.

Lastly, poor technique will leave a shoddy surface with even the best sanders.

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5” vs 6” may not seem like a big difference, but it is almost 1.5x the surface area. That can add up big time on larger surfaces that actually make use of it.

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I pulled the trigger on the Festool 6" palm sander. There was a lot of reasons backing this decision:

  • Festool has an incredibly high resale value
  • Festool as a very good reputation for customer support/warranty support
  • Festool doubles as a conversation piece
  • Festool has a very good track record for all their tools (as far as I’ve seen). I bought the domino because it’s the only type on the market, I was buying a sander and their midi vacuum was very very well reviewed and tested.
  • Festool has a large array of stuff. Pads, aftermarket dust collection crap, things people have designed on thing averse etc. Other brands aren’t afforded so much configurability.

Why not ____:

  • 3M was my first choice because it isn’t Festool and 3M has a very good track record on their pneumatic sanders. However I’ve seen way too many reviews about them burning up. While I’m sure that their customer/warranty support is as good as Festool, I worry about what happens if I fall outside of their warranty - I prefer not to.
  • 3m’s vacuum looks great. But it’s $200-400 more expensive. I know you don’t have tie your tool to your vacuum, but there’s benefits to staying within the family in regard to tools, like it or not.
  • Mirka is very expensive. I’ve have nothing but good experiences with their sanders in the pneumatic variation. But I’ve read reviews similar to 3M in regard to the electric versions burning up. They have good customer support, sure. But why tempt fate? I don’t have unlimited time to deal with returns and customer support issues.
  • Both the 3M and the Mirka have paddle switches. I get the appeal to these switches, but sanding is fatiguing, and I often swap how I hold the sander in order to give various parts of my hand a break. This is more complicated with the 3M/Mirka.
  • Bosch was my second choice after 3M. I try to avoid buying twice, but seem to always do that when I try to save money. I’m sure Bosch is great on their top of the line RO sanders. However there’s not a large market for their top tier products here in the US. So service is a concern. There’s not a lot of 3rd party experience to leverage. And in general this feels like the first of two purchases towards a death sander.

edit:
Surfprep was an interesting addition to the conversation that @cfstaley introduced.
Although it was never in the running do the the fact that I almost never make stuff with profile details/radiuses (at least outside of what the Festool soft pad can handle), I’m happy to hear that there’s a good option available in the event that I find myself needing a detailed profile solution.

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I wonder if the reason those sanders burn out so much is because of the paddle. Constantly stopping and starting so much can’t be great for longevity

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