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I’m looking to install 3/4″ oak hardwood floors and was wondering if the large retangular pad sanders available for rent from the home stores worked as well at the drum sanders used by professionals? They look more forgiving for the DIYer to use, but are the results just as good? Does it take looker to sand the floor down?
Thanks.
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Don't know what "pad sanders" you're talking about, but I don't think so. You can do the drum sanding. It's not easy. You can make it look bad. You'll get a backache. It won't be fun. If you do it, start out with a drum sander that has an arm on it that raises and lowers the drum. There are some out there still that you have to tip the unit up to get the drum off the floor. You'll have to get an edger for around the perimeter. Wait for a floor pro answer here to help you decide. I'm just a dumb carpenter. Best of luck.
*I'm a dumber carpenter than Calvin, but here's my $0.02 worth. I rented one of those square jobs, just a big orbital sander, to refinish a small amount of oak floor in my house. In my opinion it wasnt worth much, I ended up finishing the job with my 3"x24" belt sander, random orbit sander and hand sanding the corners. The only good point I could see is it would be hard to seriously screw up your floor with this sander, somthing easy to do with a drum sander in inexperienced hands, at least the antique one I've used. Chuck
*I too rented one of these lil' gems. The task was to sand a T&G porch floor to be re-painted. There was a lot of old failing paint to be removedThis was a complete was of time, and money. I was madder than a nest of hornets when I saw how poorly this performed. Of course the b 'expert' at the store told me this was just what I wanted. I don't know what planet he was from, but I took it back, and told them not to even think about charging me...I suppose they would work fine to skuff up an existing finish to be re-coated.
*used one last spring for 300 feet of SYP.....i liked it.. and i'd use it again...change grits instantly... less dust and noise.. easier to control..i especially liked the screen for between coats..got a big job ... use a sub... let him use the drum sander... too easy to screw it up..b but hey, whadda i no ?
*I'm with Mike on the big jobs....hire a sub. It's not worth screwing up your floor.Around here, I can hire it out for chaeper than the rental, pick up time, and my time to do the job...plus it looks a heck of a lot better...faster.
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Iused the drum sander on my new kitchen floor, didnt like it, it left "chatter" marks on the whole floor. the marks are from where the belt is folded then tucked into the drum. you can definetly see the marks on the floor after it has been finished. I used the big pad sander on my room addition. It did a great job. But it may take a little bit longer then the drum sander. No "chatter marks" with the pad sander. I have more flooring jobs coming up and will use the pad sander. Todd
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I used the big pad sander for about 600 sq. feet. The floor was not beat up just needed refinishing. It worked well. I changed the sandpaper often and used the white pad in between sand paper grits. My problem was with the water based varnish. The air was to dry for it to "flow” and we got lots of bubbles. The manufacture finally said you shouldn't use the varnish in the weather you have. They wanted 50 degrees and high humidity. But they did offer a trick of adding 1oz of whole milk to a gallon of water base varnish to help the flow. It worked but not after many calls and some very tense words as to why there were no warning on the label about suggested temperature and humidity.
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I used one to refinish about 200 square feet of oak floor. Best thing is, in the hands of an amateur it's almost impossible to really mess up your floor, unlike the drum sander. Worse thing is, it's SLOOOOOOOOOW.
Be prepared to spend a small fortune on the sandpaper. I found that it lost its initial bite very fast. The first ten minutes or so you see real progress and you're making lots of sawdust, after that I would see a dramatic decrease in actual sanding, even though the paper still felt new to the touch. Rotate the paper in the sander frequently to extend its life. Better yet, get a sandbag, seal it in a plastic garbage bag to avoid sand spills, and rest it on the top of the machine. The extra weight will significantly improve the sandpaper efficiency.
Don't skip grits. Since this is just a big orbital sander you will see lots of swirl marks if you aren't careful to use each grit in progression.
You will still need to rent an edge/corner sander, they don't do a good job on edges.
If you've got lots of time, want to do it yourself, and are hesitant about using the belt sander you can't go wrong. Good luck.
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I used one on my new douglas fir porch. It did ok, but don't expect it to remove any actual unevenness in the boards. With new oak, maybe that isn't a problem. There's no way I would expect it to remove any finish though.
If you put extra weight on it, don't block the air flow around the motor.
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>It did ok, but don't expect it to remove any actual unevenness in the
boards.
What does it remove? Or, said another way, what results did you get
from using it?
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I'm looking to install 3/4" oak hardwood floors and was wondering if the large retangular pad sanders available for rent from the home stores worked as well at the drum sanders used by professionals? They look more forgiving for the DIYer to use, but are the results just as good? Does it take looker to sand the floor down?
Thanks.
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The best thing to do is hire a pro........