okay Jonathan here at the Colfax high Mill and which shop today I was going to
look at these two Festool Sanders one is the Rotex the other of the random
orbital sander you look at clamping down the vac systems and most importantly how
these two Sanders compare so stay tuned
okay here we are in the high school woodshop the steno right here is doing a
glue up for a cutting board here's a cedar slab that we know we take these
slabs and we put them into coffee tables and benches dining room tables so I
thought I just go over what we do in here before I go over the Sanders so
there's a glue up of the cutting board and then after it dries we've cleaned it
down flat and then we take it over to the CNC router and we cut our cutting
boards out on the CNC router so all of these woods are bought and Auburn
hardwoods but usually there's an assortment woods that we've milled and
mixed in there so this is a techno CNC router spray tool here the cutting
boards getting cut out with the quarter inch flat anvil
you can a onto our Festool Sanders it's very fortunate to get a grant to buy
these so here's my box full of sand papers I go from a series of I think 100
120 150 180 and 220 so those are the box full of sand papers so here the velcro
pads really nice sand papers actually last a long time
we actually reuse them as long as there's a lot of yeast left so here's
that student's cutting board straight off of the CNC router getting clamped
down on the MFT table similarily the way we used to use bench tags on the old
table so these things are nice because they stay below the profile of a cutting
board so clamping it up here and then I'm going to start with the Rotex sander
you can see the wave still in here and the valleys from the planer so it does
protecta did a beautiful job bringing those out so Students Union with the
grain pretty coarse probably 120 grit sandpaper so sanding away with that
rotecks does a beautiful job taking out those
big waves it is kind of big and heavy a disadvantage of that Rotex is that is
probably $500 and the sanding pads are expensive but surprisingly those sanding
pads work so well they last really long so one of the key things students have
trouble with with this rotecks this is holding it flat and not kind of
focusing on a single point wish to change our sandpaper the student here
change out sandpaper is going to finer grit
moving it around the biggest issue really in sanding and Festool is kind of
the master of this is to remove the dust and you know with that Rotex actually on
the board and it not clamped down you can almost pick that board up with the
vacuum power of it so the stamp papers are expensive but they really last so
long because the dust control from Festool is fantastic the other thing
that's amazing to you one problem we used to have with that Paducah
strip in there that dust will get into any light wood and mark it up but with
either the Festool products there's really no dust down at all and obviously
no dust to breathe I do ask the students to put the sand papers back if they're
not worn out so you know she's only doing I don't know a minute or two you
and every grit and here she is swapping out to a little finer grit and putting
it in and then doing some more passes and and really this isn't much time at
all sanding compared to a regular orbital sander
so you know really for this job right here that ETS 125 would work fine it is
a random orbital sander the big difference between the Rotax and the ETS
is the fact that the Rotex has that dual purpose between rotary and random
orbital sander so here she is swapping out another sandpaper they're moving up
to a finer grit the ETS would work just as equally well here the main reason I
have that wrote X 125 in the first place is between mill our own lumber and we
have a lot of slabs and we either plane those slabs if they're under 24 or we
put them on this on our big CNC router and then we use the surfacing bit to get
a flat plane so we really take a lot of wood off after we're done either
surfacing or planing so the ETS would be a great sander for this equally just as
good sanding control same sandpaper five inch disks it's kind of a worn-out paper
there I probably throw that one away and get another one there she is
oh there's a beauty there Hector's up you only in a high school classroom when
it can't get that thing to polish fine look at that
the thing is price me good lord so obviously you got to change this you
have paper out a little board regularly the bat okay so there she is just doing
their finishing touches on her cutting board with the Rotex here's me working
with it I'm standing really well I like it because it's fast it is expensive it
is kind of heavy a little harder to control and here's a dual action so that
right there that's spinning right there is that I know the Dulce art random
orbital sander and it spins freely then you could lock the gear mechanism and
now you see how that thing's locked now that is a gear driven sander and that
thing will hog would like no other so you could get things flat pretty quickly
with that rotary engagement and it's gear driven and I absolutely love that
500 bucks a lot but when you're standing down slabs
there is nothing I've ever found that stands better than that rotary sander in
the Rotex belt Sanders I mean it really does the standing of a belt sander but
without ever cutting any grooves so I love the Rotax I would highly recommend
it there's a speed variable speed on there and I also like that ETS 125 it's
a great sander it is a $200 sander you see that see how people right there's a
little worn a lot of cedar pits so the you know the 125s are the five inch and
then the 150 to the 6-inch I guess if I could do it all over again I would
probably get the Rotex 150 because we do stand down a lot of
big slabs for tabletops I mean they are beautiful tools you know there's a high
school woodshop having tools in a high school woodshop
is like learning all your favorite tools out to your 90 worst neighbors every day
but I will say these two fest tools have really held up beautifully and I
sometimes go back and forth between the philosophy you buy inexpensive tools and
replace them frequently but I think these fast tools have paid for
themselves the Rotex 125 has been phenomenal I used to have these
porter-cable random orbitals and the Rotex is really taking that over here's
that standing this I'm just so unbelievably shocked that somebody would
back I mean that you would stand so long but it is it's high school woodshop yeah
so I guess comparing these to the Rotex is a best stander everything everybody
has ever said about the festival rotex is worth it if you're going to do
natural edge boards coffee tables benches there's nothing better than the
Rotex and I love that tool the ETS 125 is a great standard to