My old random orbital sander is about to give up the ghost. Looks like the Porter Cable 333vs gets high marks but is it a current model? Any other suggestions?
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The Festool ETS 150/3 is considered to be one of the finest finish sanders available. It's particular good when used with the Festool vac.
Fine Woodworking picked the Festool 150/3 as the best ROS. They claim that with the dust extractor, it will remove 60% as much as the Festool Rotex.I bought one and it works great and with the dust extractor, there is no dust. I mean no dust. And the sanding disks last a lot longer too.Domer
That's been my experience too.I also love the Rotex; it saves a lot of time.
Festool may be the best of everything but so is there price. For me, its too far out to even consider. It will be interesting to see what this economy does to them. Will they lower their prices to maintain some market share or will people just keep on paying them their exorbitant prices?Chuck
Woodless:I agree that Festool's initial acquisition price is higher than many competitors, but you have to ask why so many professionals make the investment. For finish carpenters, or folks who work at a job site, Festool has many advantages.My guess is that the total life time cost and improved accuracy, ease of use, reliability etc. pay off.In general, niche products with a loyal following that offer real value will tend to survive, provided they don't do something really stupid.Regards,Hastings
"...you have to ask why so many professionals make the investment." To some extent this is the Festool market. A professional can not only recoup the price of the tool by what he/she charges for their product, they also get to depreciate the tool on their taxes. The amateur woodworker must suck up the tool cost and just be satisfied with having a quality tool and will likely never be able to really justify its cost.Chuck
A professional can not only recoup the price of the tool by what he/she charges for their product...
Not quite how the world works. Professionals do have to recoup the cost of their tools, but what they can charge doesn't depend on who expensive their tools are, only whether those expensive tools can do a better job. You can only charge more for better results, not for higher costs.
Do Festool sanders make sanding enjoyable?Chris @ http://www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com(soon to be http://www.flairwoodworks.com)
- Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
orgasmic... apparently.
Low paid helpers make sanding enjoyable. As I said above "The Festool makes it bearable." :)
Sanding is never enjoyable but.. having 3 ROS's for less than the price of a Festool sander makes it much more bearable. You put say a 120 grit on one.. 150 grit on another and the 3rd one gets a 180 grit. Bang.. bang.. bang.. with no grit changes and the one piece of stock never leaves the table from starting grit to finish grit.. Life is simple! :>)
NEXT....
Sarge..
I've been using a PC 333 for yrs. LOML gave me a PC 390K for Christmas. Incredible difference in performance and noise and the quick stop feature has me lovin' it.
I think the newer 333 is the 343 and about the only difference is 8 holes instead of 5.
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Bob Ross
WalnutAcreWoodworking.com
Last night I used a Ridgid 6" (made by Metabo at that time).. a PC 333 (have had it for many years) and a Bosch all loaded with a different grit. They all are good sanders but... it I had it to do over I would go with the Makita over the Bosch as I hate the dust collector adapter on the Bosch.
Sarge..
Read the two FWW articles. They did one test on 5" ROS's and one on 6 inchers. Festool won the 6" test but there were other good models. You can pick one that excels in the areas that are most important to you.
The Festool 5" model isn't that special, in my opinion. The Rigid was as good in sanding results (my #1 issue). But the cost differential for the 5: Festool isn't that large, either. The Festool 6" model stood out from the pack, IMHO, but the price is out-of-site ($265?). That said, my son bought me a 5" Festool which I upgraded for over a hundred dollars to the 6" model. The Festool paper is priced about the same as other papers and seems to last quite well.
I use the 6" Festool (3 mm stroke) for grits 80 / 120 / 180 and the 5" Rigid for 320 grit. The larger surface of the Festool generates more dust but both seem pretty dust free when I hook them to my shop vac (hard to arrange with the Festool if you're too cheap to buy their hose). I do not feel like I'm stepping down in quality when I switch from the Festool to the Rigid.
NOTE: I am not particularly recommending the Rigid - it just happens to be what I own and it seems to work pretty well. But it allows me to compare a sander that came out pretty well in the comparison tests against one the was THE best.
PS - A potentially big issue is sandpaper. Do you have a large supply that fits your current sander? If so, you might throw that into the mix when you do your evaluation of what works best for you. I hope this helps you.
The Wood Loon
Acton, MA
Isn't "ROS Sander" redundant?
Montanaman,
While I would love to have the Festool, my reality dictated another PC, my 333 has given my good service and I recently augmented it with a PC390. I like the low profile design and it seem to have MUCH more power than my 333. It comes with a pad for 8 hole disks but seeing as how I have many hundreds of 5 hole disks I got a replacement 5 hole pad for it. It works great, I feature I particularly like is that it does not wind up to high speed when I take it off my work they way the 333 does.
Hope this helps
Thanks for the advice. I think the pc 343 or 390 is what I'll look at. If I was making a living at this I'd get the Fesstool system. I worked on my old Ryobi and it may have more life in it than I had thought.
Not to try and sway your decision at all because tool cost is a huge issue. I do find however that as far as powertools go, the two that get the most use in my shop are the tablesaw and the ROS, probably not in that order. I do have the Festool ETS 150/5, which has a slightly larger orbit than the 150/3. It is a 6" model and I have the CT-Mini dust extractor hooked to it. I can say that it was extrememly painful to purchase, but one of the best purchases I have made. The thing is truly an unbelievable sander. I don't like to sand, but I do a lot, perhaps a disproportionate ammount of it on any given project. The Festool makes it bearable.
I put 7 years of regular usage on my PC333VS and have no complaints. The dust canister gave up when it was crushed under something heavy but I attach a DC hose to the sander so that was no big loss. It's still going strong and while it would be nice to have the low profile design, I'll happily keep using the 333VS (btw, I also have the Ridgid 6" that is made in Germany by Metabo, it's also an example of a really high quality power tool at an affordable price).Like a lot of power tools, you can always spend more to get something better but you have to ask yourself if you will notice the "something better" and in most cases you simply won't. Take the oft referenced Festool Kapex SCMS. It is a really impressive tool but it costs 2x what anything else in the category costs, so you have to consider whether or not it is 2x better than the 12" Makita SCMS and/or are the improvements that valuable to you. I have the Makita and have used the Kapex, my initial impression is that the Kapex is indeed a better tool than the Makita but incrementally better not twice as good.Beware of people who tell you that you have to spend top $$ to get what the "pros" use. I see lots of finish carpenters that get by just fine with Marple blue handled chisels.
Thanks for the reply. I know what you mean when it comes to tool prices/quality. I try and follow the tool reviews and I'm always on the look out for when the best value and the best quality, (either user or editor) match. Doesn't happen very often but once in a while. Is it also your underastanding that the pc 333 has been replaced by the 343?
I think so, looks like they redesigned the dust collection fitting/canister, which in all honesty really was a weakness on the 333 design. It worked, just not great and the canister has a tendency to not stay on after as the tool ages.
Thanks. That's one good thing about my old ryobi, it fits right onto my shop vac hose.
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