Thread: Advice on festool

Jigsaw...the latest one is a PS 420
RO90... I hear good things about this sander. Great for the small hard to get at sanding. Plus a delta shaped sanding head as well as the 90mm round head, Rotex or random orbital mode.
Watch Paul Marcel demo this unit.

This will be my next Festool purchase
While your at it, you may as well go for a Festool dust extractor to remove the dust the RO makes.

Festy jigsaw is a nice unit but personally don't regard it that much better than other brands.

Originally Posted by wolften

I hear good things about this sander. Great for the small hard to get at sanding. Plus a delta shaped sanding head as well as the 90mm round head, Rotex or random orbital mode.

Nice little sander the 90. Delta head is handy. My only major issue with this unit is it requires greater user control than the 150 due to what I regard as balance issues. Suggest you go touch and feel and better still trial one if you know someone with one.

Craig.

Originally Posted by CMB

Festy jigsaw is a nice unit but personally don't regard it that much better than other brands.



Nice little sander the 90. Delta head is handy. My only major issue with this unit is it requires greater user control than the 150 due to what I regard as balance issues. Suggest you go touch and feel and better still trial one if you know someone with one.

Craig.

Love the RO 90. But it is a little wieldy at times

best Festool advice, buy it all

...the best situation...buy it...try it for 30 days...don't like it... take it back for a full refund no questions asked.

The Festool jigsaw I find is a little better a making deeper cuts in benchtops for sinks and the such like. But generally it does not matter that much. Would I spend the extra money again on one? Probably not. The dust control also works a bit better but there is not much in it.

The RO90 on the other hand, well I'm a big fan. I am currently making a bed with lots of curves and the larger machines I have are just too big for the job. Without the RO90 I would be doing a bucket of hand sanding. Also, I have used it to strip a chamferboard house, my own, with the dust extraction and worked a treat believe it or not. I wouldn't recommend using one for that though. A little beyond the design intention for the machine.

Cheers

Originally Posted by MatMann

best Festool advice, buy it all

Which are the best banks to rob, easy wise?

I have the RO90 and the ES150

RO is incredibly versatile. however, for any finish sanding the Es150 is much better. the RO is a little too small for finish sanding if feel. as noted before it does have the balance issue, so you do get a sore wrist/arm after a while too. But for anything that isnt flat, its brilliant. the polisher pads etc. for it are brilliant. I like to buy crashed motorbikes and repair and repaint them. The RO90 is great for all the detail sanding of tanks and fairings.

Hi, if its not bad protocol to ask about a differnt product here I am interested to know what users think of the Festool portable router table and OF 2200 kit? My previous big router went in the 2011 flood and am only now replacing it. There are lots of rave reviews for the OF 2200 but I was wondering whether the table and fence compare well with something like the Kreg Professional (apart from size of course). I make mainly small furniture and boxes so am looking at dovetail etc box joints on the table. Please let me know if I should ask this somewhere else.

Originally Posted by Xanthorrhoeas

Hi, if its not bad protocol to ask about a differnt product here I am interested to know what users think of the Festool portable router table and OF 2200 kit? My previous big router went in the 2011 flood and am only now replacing it. There are lots of rave reviews for the OF 2200 but I was wondering whether the table and fence compare well with something like the Kreg Professional (apart from size of course). I make mainly small furniture and boxes so am looking at dovetail etc box joints on the table. Please let me know if I should ask this somewhere else.

The CMS-OF-2200 gets some interesting discussion, some thing the OF-2200 in a CMS is a great combo, others think it's a waste putting that router in a CMS. But remember it can come out again.

Here are some previous threads...

https://www.woodworkforums.com/f58/ne...ter-cms-72305/
https://www.woodworkforums.com/f58/ta...router-156082/
https://www.woodworkforums.com/f58/2200-cms-154484/

But they are a bit aged, and since then the USA has received the CMS and there is now more general understanding and utilisation of the CMS than ever before and more feedback.

Personally speaking (keeping in mind the usual disclaimer that I am a Festool dealer) I love my own OF-2200 in a CMS. I keep it in the CMS permanently and have the plunge spring removed for table only mode. But before I go on and on about why I love it, I'll shush up and let some others give feedback.

For your dovetailing small boxes, are you planning on using a Gifkins jig on the router table? Or using the OF-2200 with another dovetail system?

Hi nt900, Thanks for the information and links. Very informative as I am new to Festool, having always shied away because of the price. Most of my gear has been solid and affordable stuff that had the capacity for whatever I was doing at the time I purchased it. However, routers and I have never been best friends, partly because my previous set up was pretty clunky with big start up torque and difficult bit changes etc. (being about 30 years old) so I am looking at the Festool for its sophistication and ease of use, which, if it gets me the results I want, would make the significant cost worthwhile.

In terms of jigs I have used cheapies and (for a small time only) the Gifkins but don't have one and am thinking of the Leigh Jigs from carba-tec as they allow variable spacing for different sized projects. I am pretty rusty on my woodworking skills (such as they ever were) as work intervened for a long time, but am just getting keen again. Hence joining the forum to get some expert feedback and advice!

Welcome Xanthorroeas to the Festool slippery slope.

As I said, I love the CMS and OF-2200 combo, but have you considered the OF-1400 instead. For hand held work and working on dovetail jigs, the OF-1400 is really nice. Although some people are quite happy with the OF-2200 hand held, not much dovetailing jig work happens with one.

With both the OF-1400 and OF-2200 you can get a "copy ring" that then holds the Leigh (and other) bushes, so you get good compatibility and easy set-up with the Leigh jigs. "Allows use of US industry standard 2 piece threaded guide bushing assemblies with the router." This is what the OF-220 one looks like.

Hi again nt900
No, that thought hadn't occurred to me as I have been guided by Fine Woodworking Routers and Router Tables. But, i'm really mostly interested in using it for small mouldings as well as dovetails and box joints so if the OF 1400 is better for those I will certainly consider it. I guess the big power of the 2200 is really for such things as big mouldings or big mortises but I have a chisel mortiser for the latter so may well be better with an easier to handle machine if it is more suitable. Thanks for that suggestion - more things to look at!

Originally Posted by nt900

with the OF-2200 hand held, not much dovetailing jig work happens with one.

I was wondering whether you mean that people do not do dovetailing with a jig hand held with the OF 2200 or just don't do dovetail jig work with it at all? I have been intending to use a dovetail jig on a router mounted in a table. Is that difficult with the OF 2200 - or any other router for that matter?

Thanks

Originally Posted by Xanthorrhoeas

I was wondering whether you mean that people do not do dovetailing with a jig hand held with the OF 2200 or just don't do dovetail jig work with it at all? I have been intending to use a dovetail jig on a router mounted in a table. Is that difficult with the OF 2200 - or any other router for that matter?

Thanks

The OF-2200 in a router table is just fine for use with jigs like the Gifkins. The above table cutter changing also makes things easier, and the above table height adjustment as well.

What I meant, was the OF-2200 is rather heavy for use hand held on some jigs, less substantial jigs can bend under its weight producing poor results. But mostly, it can be fatiguing. Also, on some jigs, the rather large base of the router may present problems, being interfered with by knobs and other elements of the jig.