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I don’t need to tell you how EXPENSIVE a Festool sander is here in the UK. Kidney for sale, anyone?
I know that there’s the argument for investing in good quality tools but unless furniture flipping/painting/restoration is your full-time job and you’re making a decent living off it, then not many people want to shell out upwards of £500 JUST FOR A SANDER.
Not to mention the Surf Prep sander you see all over YouTube and Instagram, that can’t be bought for love nor money in the UK. That soft spongey goodness, that hugs those curvy pieces of furniture and lets you sand around edges without flattening them out. Yes, that one.
Ever thrifty and creative here at Flip It & Restore It, we’ve put together a combo that we think is pretty damn good, if we say so ourselves. It won’t break the bank and it will give you the dust extraction benefits of the Festool and the sponge benefits of the Surf Prep. Want to find out what products we used? Then keep on reading…
STEP 1 – The Shop Vac
For our Shop Vac, we bought the Titan TTB775VAC 1400W 20LTR Wet & Dry Vacuum. This is a great little vacuum – lightweight, wet & dry, blower function and comes with different attachments.
We picked this up at Screwfix for £64.99. You can find a similar one at B&Q here or on Amazon here.
Comparatively, in the UK, the cheapest Festool Dust Extractor is going to set you back about £300, has less power at 1200W and has a similar dry capacity of 15 litres. The Festool is quieter at 70dBA, whereas the Titan has a sound level of 78 dBA.
STEP 2 – The Sander
When it came to the sander we chose, we wanted an orbital sander. It needed to have variable speeds and a hose attachment so we could connect it to the shop vac. This Erbauer ERO400 125MM Electric Random Orbital Sander ticked the boxes for us and it was highly rated without breaking the bank.
If you didn’t want to use it with a vacuum, then it does come with a dust box to collect your sanding dust.
We picked this up at Screwfix for £49.99.
Comparatively, in the UK, the cheapest Festool Orbital Sander is going to set you back about £450 and has the same 400W power as the Erbauer ERO400.
STEP 3 – The Sponge Interface Pad
These sponge interface pads have 8 holes and these line up perfectly with the holes on the Erbauer ERO400 sander, which is important, as this allows the dust to be extracted into the Titan shop vac when you are sanding.
Each pad is 10mm thick so provides a good amount of cushioning to sand around edges and details. I wouldn’t press really hard though as you will flatten out your bumps and bits if you do! Plus, it sticks like glue to the Erbauer sander. This isn’t coming off without a fight!
We picked up a pack of two pads at Amazon for £12.99.
Comparatively, in the UK, a Festool Interface pad will set you back about £10.
Okay, so we have the three most important elements sorted to mimic Festool and Surf Prep sanders, now just put it all together and switch your Titan shop vac and your Erbauer sander on!
You can see ours in action on this Instagram reel we shared…
Right, down the nitty-gritty, the cost!
Titan shop vac – £64.99
Erbauer sander – £49.99
Interface Pads – £12.99
So, a grand total of £127.97!
Compare that with a hefty sum of £760 for a Festool sander and extractor!
Don’t get me wrong, I am sure that the Festool sander would absolutely eat our combo for breakfast but we wanted to give you a cheaper alternative that could give you a similar result. Does our Titan/Erbauer combo extract every molecule of dust? No. Does it have an adjustable suction flow? No. Does it have an antistatic function? No.
Is it nearly 6 times cheaper than a Festool? YES. Does it do the job of sucking up most of your sanding dust? YES.
Would you give this sander/shop vac combo a go? If you do, we would love to see and hear about your experience!
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See you on the next flip!
Brenda & Stu x
Hi, thanks for this information! My partner says we could use a Henry Hoover instead for dust extraction. Would appreciate your thoughts on that…
Yes, I believe that you could use a Henry Hoover too. My only thoughts are that the level of dust extraction won’t be as good as an industrial hoover, designed specifically for this purpose. So you might find, there is more dust left in the air rather than being extracted and filtered into the hoover. It would probably be a good idea to wear a dust mask if you go down this route just to be safe 🙂