AWITW 297: From sawn to smooth in 83 seconds.

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Hi everyone, hope you’ve had a good week and are having a great weekend.

In this one I get to use extraordinary Mirka Deros RS sander and just for fun I take a piece of sawn Idigbo - pretty sure it's Idigbo from the yellowness of the finished timber - to a silky smooth finish in just 83 seconds of sanding, first with P80, then P180.

That’s it, that’s all it took, and to prove it I did this in real-time. Incredible - as it should be for the £757 asking price! Very similar to the Festool ETS EC to be fair, and these are inc VAT and manufacturers recommended or suggested prices, so I’d expect street prices to be lower. Even so, that’s a lot for a sander!

While the party trick is clearly aggressive sanding in a very smooth and controlled way, I’m keen to try it out on more ‘normal’ operations, like cleaning up drawer boxes and maybe even de-nibbing between coats of lacquer; if it can handle that then this is a real and much lighter-weight alternative to a Rotex-alike gear driven sander, assuming of course you can accept the cost.

I have to say that having used it for just this one operation, I’d have one in a heartbeat; that’s the heart talking of course, the head is still telling me to try it out on a few other projects first!

And I finally get around to giving the 25/32" imperial bit a go as an alternative MFT bit; It was very tight with my OF1400 router, but better than both the 20mm Trend bit (too loose) and the Wealden 19.5mm bit (too tight). The 25/32" was too tight to be used straight off the router, but was a much better prospect for reaming as I could fit more of the reamer into the dog hole, so a better chance of keeping it perpendicular. I also need to try it out at a higher speed, see if that makes a difference.

Other than that, life is just a whirlwind of cardboard, packaging, 3D printing and health & safety documentation. What a world!

Thanks everybody; if you’re in the UK then have a fabulous Bank Holiday Weekend, and if you’re not then have a great weekend anyway!

Thank you as always for your amazing support, and I’ll see you in the midweek.

Peter

I used Leo's Carnauba wax to finish the Idigbo, you can pick it up from Leo's store here -  https://www.hand-i-craft.com/store-1-2