Greg Pavlov
09-24-2007, 12:28 AM
I decided to break in my new RS 2 a few days ago on a walnut table top that needs refinishing. Never having used an orbital this powerful before, I went for the discretion over valor route and hit a scrap piece of wood first with 120 Brilliant. It seemed fine, so I lowered the orbit rate to 4 (seemed to be the way to go per Festool's setting suggestions) and went at the table. The sander started crabbing off to the right. It did this several times. I increased the orbit rate to 6 or so and applied some pressure and the sander generally settled down but every minute or so seemed to try to pull towards the right. After making several passes I went to 180 grit and things got better still but never as smooth as I expected.
I'm assuming that this is operator error, but I thought I'd check. I had read that I should put the minimum amount of pressure on the sander and just let it do its work. But maybe I was taking Jerry Work's "No downward pressure is needed and none is desirable" too literally. And it also looks like orbit rate makes a difference. So, am I doing something wrong?
I'm assuming that this is operator error, but I thought I'd check. I had read that I should put the minimum amount of pressure on the sander and just let it do its work. But maybe I was taking Jerry Work's "No downward pressure is needed and none is desirable" too literally. And it also looks like orbit rate makes a difference. So, am I doing something wrong?