John,

I've used a Festo track saw since the early 90's and love the tool.... best non-saw-guard ever with the saw body retracting up above the table..., bought the top Festool Jig saw (very unimpressed) in 2015 when doing a job on the road because the new Bosche wasn't available locally, but have yet to use a Festool sander. You, Brian and many others on the forum speak highly of them, and I've had a Pro 5 LTD ETS 125 on order since paying the Tool Nut $99 last Oct. 7th.

I would agree that the Makita and Dewalt sanders aren't in the same league as the Festool, Mirka and perhaps other higher end tools, and the integrated vacuum hose/cords both Mirka and Festool came out with are clever and especially handy if one stays with the respective tool lines..., eapecially so in a shop where the sanding tasks are consistent.

But a current project had challenges where no single sander line was the best choice. Along with "traditional" sanding tasks, on this project the 1/2" exterior wood bevel siding needed serious prep for paint on a 1925 Bungalow. I've known pro painters have preferred the Makita GV5000 (now replaced by the slightly more powerful GV5010) sanders mated to the 5" 3M Coating Removal Discs, which are 5/8" or so thick and so agressively sand both face and bottom edge of the siding course above simultaneously. Very handy and time saving. Because the GV5000's have no provision for dust collection, I drilled out the M8-1.25 threads and tapped them 5/16-24 to adapt the Mirka hook and loop pads on both of mine, using a leftover thin pocket door wrench to tighten to shaft, then bought and installed the very clever retrofit dust collection shields from Paintshaver, which surround the disc with a circular wall of brushes and do a fair job of capturing dust when connected to the Makita VC4710 vacuum. To my knowledge, no other sander would collect dust better when using the 3M CD pads than what was used here, but I'm open to learning otherwise.

Paintshaver also makes a clever device which works like a plane but which has rotary carbide blades. Too rich for my blood, so I bought the comparable Metabo LF 724S for about half the price. Depth of cut is adjustable and tool is great for first pass of paint prep on challenging surfaces.

The Mirka Deros follows the 3M CRD treatment and works great feathering edges while erasing marks left from the more aggressive tools. Corners, tight spots and trim edges are finshed off using the Fein multimaster sander.

ALL of these tools connect to the VC4710 for dust collection. Neither the Festool nor the Mirka hoses with integrated cord would have helped in adapting all of these devices. With the knowledge I process, I thought each of these tools, from various manufacturers and with some adaptation best served challenges we faced in this applicaction.

Best,

Lance