On Tuesday, September 29, 2015 at 8:47:50 AM UTC-5, Leon wrote:


I'm quite certain Festool was here long before that as Robert/Robatoy
could never say enough about the Rotex sander that he used to sand and
polish his counter tops.. IIRC he was on his second one.

He was my pusher that helped me see the light.

Doing the work I do, we had some entertaining conversations about buying the Fein oscillating tool. He had one that he bought after much consideration, and he loved it. I never could justify the tool (15 - 20 years ago blades were still $25 each on average) and he couldn't see how I could live without it. He used his constantly. After I bought my first inexpensive model, I couldn't either.

Then we had a some great conversation and there was a lot of consternation about the great biscuit debate that swelled up here on occasion. He used a Lamello A LOT, and he was the only one I knew that used the absolute daylights out of a biscuit machine at that time. He used them to align and join some of his work where connectors couldn't be used. Until Rob described it (and was actually doing it regularly) I would never have thought of joining two perpendicular surfaces with biscuits. Like me, he found through practical experience the biscuit added a great deal to certain types of joinery.

He was the first one I knew that had a 23ga. pinner. Honestly, with no heads on the pins I had difficult figuring out what to do with one of those, even if I had one. He was applying different moldings, finishing pieces and all other kinds of appliques to work on occasion and he gave the run down on it. He had a Grex (sp?) long before they even sold them down here.

I don't know how he did it, but he always seem to be right on top of any kind of tool innovations, especially those with any value. I too remember his delight with the Rotex sander, and being a champion of that tool. I used a Bosch sander at that time that was 90% of the Festool for 20% of the price. I had to have a shop vac attached to mine to sand inside an occupied home and got a little dust, and he had the Festool with a shop vac (don't recall it being a Festool, but some other Euro brand)and got no dust. I remember that he used the Rotex long and hard enough to actually kill it, and he was kind of pleased with himself for that.

Gone too soon...

Robert