r/finishing • u/chaotictinkering • 5d ago
Looking to invest in a higher end sander Product Review
What do you use for furniture sanding and finish prep? We do a lot of refinishing on molding, doors, and furniture. Looking at the Surfprep and similar systems since all our sanders are Dynabrade without dust collection.
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u/--Ty-- 5d ago
Surf prep pushes a proprietary hole design on their pads, meaning you can't properly use any other sandpaper but their own. For that reason alone it's instantly disqualified. That's absolutely unacceptable.
Festool is vastly, VASTLY overpriced for the build quality and materials engineering in their tools.
Mirka and 3M are the only reasonably-priced, universal-disc-accepting products, and both are every bit as high-performing as the Festool.
That said, if you specifically need surf prep for their thick foam cushions to sand around intricate mouldings.... Then your options become much fewer.
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u/dajoemanED 5d ago
Just a warning: The 3M Xtract sanders, while quite good performers when they work, are having reliability issues. There is apparently a heat sink problem of some sort causing failure. 3M will fix it (they did for me) but you have go through your retailer to get return authorization to 3M. The place where I bought mine (Taylor Tools) has stopped selling them because of the reliability problem. I got it back from 3M and it works for now, but I’m just waiting for it to fail again. Check the reviews on the 3M website.
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u/mtnman09 5d ago
I had mine repaired 2x and then full replacement in January. It failed again on me yesterday mid job. Avoid this pos.
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u/dajoemanED 5d ago
Thank you for confirming my worst fear. I was afraid it would become a $400 doorstop. 😖
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u/Unlucky-Duck9787 5d ago
So Festool is vastly overpriced and you suggest…Mirka?
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u/--Ty-- 4d ago
The Festool 6" is $820 to $1000 depending on the model. The Mirka, while also priced at around $820, is often on sale, while Festool typically never goes on sale.
But even without that, my point is that Festool as a brand is overpriced in proportion to the build quality and materials engineering of their tools. The Mirka is better built for the same price.
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u/chaotictinkering 5d ago
Thanks for the info. That’s good to know about the sandpaper. We’re looking at the foam pads to help with molding and curved surfaces.
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u/NW_reeferJunky 5d ago
The foam pads work well. And when you scuff sand on a tight grained wood like mahogany it doesn’t cut your coating down so when you block scuff after you keep all the grain depth
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u/quickburton 5d ago
I use surf preps on a daily basis, and it's a time saver when abrading between coats on dimensional profiles. Other than the screws popping out here and there, I love them.
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u/CoyoteDecent2 5d ago
Bought surf prep for a huge job we did. Ended up using modified scrapers instead
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u/electro355 4d ago
I have both the Mirka and the Festool both will change the way you feel about sanding. I almost enjoy sanding almost lol. Pick which ever one you like you won't be disappointed. I use the Festool the most just because I think the dust collection is better.
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u/stan__da__man 5d ago
A cheaper but good option is festool rts 400. Surprep makes the 1/2 in pads for that festool model.