Detail/mouse sander – indoor use, good dust extraction is a must

We’ve recently moved to house further down the street, same age, original builder etc. The new house is a bit more tired than the house we left. Quite a lot of the wood work needs a tidy up and a fresh coat of paint.

I’m looking for a detail sander to help with this, with decent dust extraction when connected to a dust extractor. Top of the range would be the eye-wateringly expensive Festool DTS-400

There’s also the Bosch GSS 160 Multi, at a much more reasonable price. I would assume the Festool dust extraction would be excellent, but wondered what to expect of the the Bosch…?

Any other recommendations would be appreciated too

A lot of your dust extraction performance will come from the abrasive you use I’d say over the specific machine, although of course the fancier machines will tend to be designed better in this way.

For stuff around the house, skirting and other woodwork, I wouldn’t personally splash out on a very expensive machine with a fine orbit etc.
They’re professional machines really.
I’d target my money at the best abrasives that’ll extract efficiently and clog less and get a perfectly decent corded machine such as an Erbauer from Screwfix.

I would use either Abranet or 3M Xtract which are mesh-type abrasives, and make a huge difference over traditional holed ones.
I’ve used both extensively and prefer the 3M at the moment.
You may not get them in detail shape, but you can simply trim the discs to your machine.

The downside can be that they are a little delicate sometimes so you need to be mindful of that in use.

I would also get an ‘interface pad’ for the sander. These are a hook and loop layer that goes on the original base before the abrasive and can save you melting the original hook and loop through overly aggressive sanding (which you should never do, but happens an awful lot with detail sanders with the narrow tip)

I’ve used Abranet for years now self employed, and since I’ve gotten a job, the company buy Mirka Ace holed pads. The difference is crazy. The holed pads are terrible in how well they extract and how long they last. Of course the company buys them because they’re cheaper but it’s a false economy.

If you want to spend money, then Mirka make some of the best extracting sanders and are favoured by the decorating trades. They also make Abranet abrasive that I mentioned above.

I don’t know about the OP but that information is very helpful to me! I’m going to write it down now for future use. Thanks @kayak23

I don’t know if it’s the case with that particular sander (which is frankly pretty cheap for festool!) but festool’s extraction performance is usually more than just sucking through the holes in the disk and theyre active in catching the dust that escapes around the edge of the pad.

I find with other brand smaller sanders suffer from having weird, proprietary shaped dust ports that fit their daft little useless sanding bags but make it difficult to attach a extractor properly – the link to the Bosch doesnt show the port without the filter thing attached – but that would be the thing to check – that its round and theres a stated size that an extractor nozzle actually fits – otherwise  a detail sanders can get unwieldy if you have some sort of adapter (supplied or jury-rigged) to attach the extractor to the port

If its an older house (not that old really) its worth testing the paint for lead and making sure sanding is what you want to be doing though – The UK was remarkably late to the party and it was 1992 that it was finally  banned in UK paints

Thanks @kayak23. I have used mesh sheets before with an interface pad (Bosch brand mesh and pad on a 125mm Makita sander). At first the interface pad didn’t last long and quickly became a sanding disc launcher… entertaining but not ideal. Once I’d learned not to be heavy handed the second pad lasted longer, but still wore out.

Good point about the tip of the detail sander. I should check that replacement base pads are available for which ever sander I go for

@maccruiskeen

Good point about the sander to vac connection. I’ve bodged stuff together before but it makes the tool more difficult to use and inevitably disconnects at some point. Festool have a twist and lock mechanism on their ports I think

House just less than 10 years old so should be lead free. As well as the tidying up due to wear some of the work will be fixing how things were done originally

As said already, i just bought a cheapish corded orbital sander and spent a little more on the pads, as the normal ones are garbage, you’re never going to get a perfect solution on this type of job, so spending so much, on what is basically the same functional equipment is a bit pointless, you could buy a decent orbital and dust hoover for that festool price!

Yeah if you’re melting the hook and loop it’s a good sign that you’re being heavy handed.

It’s very tempting with detail sanders to bury the tip into corners and often this just melts the Velcro and permanently squooshes the foam layer in the pad.
Not good.

3M Xtract is the nuts anti clogging tech apparently and it seems to work well.

I’ve timed it against the trend version on the same painted panels and it’s better for pro use than trends version, but for hone use the trend stuff is cheaper if you get a deal on it .