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I wanted to provide a quick heads up to those who might want to have a Festool dust extractor, and are willing to live with slightly fewer bells and whistles in exchange for a lower cost. I bought a Festool CT 25, which arrived today, and I am very pleased with the purchase.

People don't seem to pay much attention to the CT 25. It is roughly the same size as a CT 26, and has roughly the same max suction, dust capacity, noise rating, HEPA filter, adjustable suction, and tool activated on/off capability. It doesn't have Bluetooth, or the front wheel brake, or the Systainer connections on the top. And the hose, while anti-static, is not the nice cloth covered type.

Price difference: The CT 26 costs $799 USD. The CT 25 costs $485 USD. For my needs (staying in the shop most of the time), I can live without the extras, so saving $314 was awesome.

I will say that, if I were taking this thing onto jobsites, I would want the extras that come with the CT 26 and larger units. But for something that is going to sit still or roll around a little in the shop, this is pretty sweet. And quiet. Two thumbs up.

With this one and my CT SYS (a great little dust extractor that lives close to my bench), I may wind up giving away my big, noisy Ridgid shop vacs to someone who can stand their constant whining.

Festool vacs are great, a huge improvement over all of the shop vacs I tried over the years. I liked the one in my shop (a seperate building) so much that after 5 years I bought another one to use in my garage.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

I got one a year ago at Rockler. I think it just came out. i had a store coupon; they changed locations, around the corner in a mall; and the rebate from new tires on my car. It cut the price more than half. I just found out yesterday, cutting out a viola neck, that it fits right in the saw dust extractor. I had it hooked up with a chip separator bin, but the saw only makes dust.

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Why be normal?

I went with the CT15E a year or 2 ago and really like it. I got it to compliment my big shop vac and stationary dust collection so I wanted smaller and more portable. Primary use is attached to portable hand power tools like RO's. It turns on and off with my Festool RO (and other tools) which is great. It has almost the same sucking power as it's larger brothers, 130 CFM.

I also use it a lot with a brush to remove hand sanding dust from work, bench and sandpaper. The 15 does not have blue tooth switching so you can't turn it on/off remotely for hand work. In hind sight I should have given more weight to the remote BT switching as it would prevent a lot of bending over to turn it on/off during hand sanding. I may have to hack it at some point for that. Other than that, great vacs!

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Brian R, Wood Mechanic
N8ZED

You can't go wrong with Festool

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Everything I purchased that was Festool, the CT-22 HEPA, 5" ROS, and cordless drill is still in service today 17 years later and I have never experienced anything but best in class performance and now, with this kind of life value too.

I'll offer one more time that the CT-22 with around 132 CFM was able to do dust collection for my Performax 10 - 20 and it worked pretty OK at it too. More CFM helps preserve paper life but in a pinch for someone tooling up you could get by with the CT-22 for one of the most dust intensive operations we do. I built my first 15 guitars with the CT-22 plugged into the Festool CT-22.

Nice to see more value pricing from Festool too so that more folks can experience the difference and value.

Just in time for my annual, I got the bonus from work and should treat myself, spending spree.


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The one in the shop lives under the bench with a foot switch to turn it on so I can get to it quickly while I'm working. Obviously I'm focused on repairs but the cord just hangs on a hook behind the vac and it can easily reach anywhere in my shop when I need it for something else. I have a good dust collection system so I don't need it for that.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

I'm thinking about getting a Festool dust collector. How easy is it to get an adaptor to connect that 27-mm hose to a standard 2 1/4" port such as on my drum sander?

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

Jay--

Pretty easy if you have $20 to spare:

https://www.amazon.com/ToolCurves-adapt ... B09XQ5XP4S

Plus, on Etsy, people sell things they have 3D printed, and you can find darn near every kind of thingamabob on there.

I made an adaptor with all the right taperrs out of a piece of pine/spruce, for my chip collector barrel, (I forgot what they call it!) on my mini lathe. But I ran lathes for 40 years.They were also the same taper that I have the lathe set up for making wooden pegs using the compound.

That is my version of a 3d printer.

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Why be normal?

Festools have a 2 1/4" port. The cool festool 2 1/4" hose is extra$, but you can use any other. Seems like you would get more air that way. Anyway, I have the 2 1/4 attached to a manifold with dust Gates to some of my stationary tools and another dust gate for the regular 27mm hose.

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Pat

From what I can tell, the intake port on the machine is 36 mm (1.4") for the current Festool models I'm looking at, and the hoses they have available are 27, 36, or 50 mm in diameter.

Btw, that looks like a cool set up you have.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

I seem to have a bigger hose than some..... I measured it and my hose is 2", wait.....

My CT-22 does not get a lot of use these days so it's not in the shop. What I do use it for is plugging in my 36" belt sander to it and then taking down saddles when I set-up acoustic guitars here at home.

It still runs and functions like the first day I ever plugged it in. Built 54 1/2 Heshtone guitars with this vac and never had a single issue with it.

It's 20 years old next year and again although expensive I've had three Shop Vacs at the shop in the time I've had this Festool

Again it's been 20 years and it's difficult to remember but I think I recall getting a bigger hose as a separate purchase. I have the green hose too in the Sustainer and I think the green one with a smaller diameter came with it.

I got the bigger hose as well when I bought my CT36 some years ago. It's been a great unit as a shop Vac and a dust collector.

Thank you for this, Don. My Festool Midi is close to 20 years old. It works great but some of the trim parts are starting to get brittle and shatter. I’ve been thinking about replacing it with a new vacuum rather than replacing the parts… (Which aren’t inexpensive!)


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