Drywall Sander recommendations

[Nor'Easter]

I am looking to pick up a drywall sander as I have a few rooms that need to be totally sanded, mudded, sanded, and primed/painted. Seems as though everything is around $500 except for Festool.

Does anyone on here do it for a living and have a recommendation?

 

[Milton Shaw]

The porter cable is very good, fast and with the right vacuum it leaves very little mess.

 

[jask]

a pole sander.
... unless you are doing many thousands of feet of sanding you will not do more than pay for the tool.. and the best way to avoid sanding is to not put the mud up in a way that requires you to sand it off. pros know- you do not get paid to take off mud you put on.. so 3 or 4 thin coats will always be better than any sanding down - as opposed to scuffing. I have worked jobs where guys did 2400 ft and the final clean up would not fill 3 beer bottles.
look on you tube there are some really great videos out there.

 

[mmelton005]

i use an old porter cable 7424 which is actually a orbital buffer for a car. it works great just get a hook and loop pad and some sanding disks...but no dust collection. way cheaper than a pole sander but you have to have ladders/scaffolding.

 

[inline five]

I used my 5" random orbital with a vacuum attachment. I agree it's best to put very little mud on as well.

Alternatively, it's one job I'd probably hire out next time. It's a lot of work and hard to get right, especially for an interior room where it needs to look good.

 

[beamrider]

I just use a wet vac, and my 5" orbital sander with 120 grit discs. Works great, I've used it in the middle of rooms, no visible dust in the air, on the floor, etc.

 

[Fender1325]

I do it for a living. I just use sponge sanding blocks they sell at home depot or lowes. Thin coats are your friend. Still dusty as hell. Just the nature of the beast.

If you're doing whole walls use a nice wide knife - 12 inch/14 inch. When taping your joints start with a 3" knife. Pack the joint with mud first, lay paper tape down the joint (fuzzy side down), tap it down with your fingers, take the 3" and pull it somewhat stiffly down the center of the tape, lightly squeezing excess mud out from under the tape. Then take a 6" knife, one edge about the middle of the tape and the other going off the right edge. Ride the tape while leaning on the right side ever so slightly. Do the same on the left. Walk away and leave it to dry. Light sanding, then use a wider knife and work mud over top the tape in the same process. Feather out the edges when all dry and you're done. I hope that makes sense. Remember, THIN THIN coats!!!

If youre using premixed mud adding a little water and mixing it up helps the workability a lot. Its important. A little goes a long way.

 

[Fender1325]

I'll reccomend using flat paint. It will hide more than a matte. If its new drywall use a 3/8 nap roller for paint. If its patch work on old walls, use a 1/2 wooster wool roller. I like valspar paint alright enough - add a little water maybe 1/2 a cup per gallon. Helps cut in easier and lay it on the walls.

 

[amac70]

a pole sander.
... unless you are doing many thousands of feet of sanding you will not do more than pay for the tool.. and the best way to avoid sanding is to not put the mud up in a way that requires you to sand it off. pros know- you do not get paid to take off mud you put on.. so 3 or 4 thin coats will always be better than any sanding down - as opposed to scuffing. I have worked jobs where guys did 2400 ft and the final clean up would not fill 3 beer bottles.
look on you tube there are some really great videos out there.

This if applied properly there should be very little sanding. Drywall sanding should not be done with power tools.

this what im currently using with 220 grit

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000WQL5CO/?tag=atomicindus08-20

 

[FMC1959]

I just use a wet vac, and my 5" orbital sander with 120 grit discs. Works great, I've used it in the middle of rooms, no visible dust in the air, on the floor, etc.

Careful when using a wet vac, or any vac. Without the filter bag or special filters, the fine drywall dust will get into the motor and eventually kill it. I know Rigid will not warranty, even with LSA, if they find drywall dust in the motor..

 

[Fender1325]

I find the circular sanding plate on the stick is kinda hard to work. What I like about the sanding sponge blocks is that youre up against the wall and you follow with your other hand. The hand usually "sees" better than your eyes. Also what really helps is to turn the lights out and leave a halogen work light aimed down the wall.

 

[beamrider]

Careful when using a wet vac, or any vac. Without the filter bag or special filters, the fine drywall dust will get into the motor and eventually kill it. I know Rigid will not warranty, even with LSA, if they find drywall dust in the motor..

Oddly enough, I do use a Ridgid, I think it's the "5hp" 4 gallon one. I just use the cheapass blue Ridgid fllter on it, and hose it out once in a while. I use it a few times a week, and it's lasted about 5 years so far. I should probably use the bags, but its lasted this long being abused,so............

 

[pcmeiners]

If it takes more than 10-20 minutes to sand a fairly large room between coats, 60 after the final, with a sanding block, you are applying too much mud, with too little patience. I have a 24" Marshal trowel which I am use to, it will make just about any flaw disappear, best part it leaves little excess compound. Agree with above poster, hand sanding is best.
If you plan on anything but flat paint, during your final sand you need both incandescent and fluorescent lights to inspect, if you can see or feel a flaw with either, you will see it in the finished paint coat in any light. Your eyes catch about 85% of the flaws, your finger/palm the remainder.
Save your $500 for more useful tools, unless you like buckets of compound dust. If you get mechanical tools, I doubt you will lean to tape properly, so it will cost you $500 for mechanical tools and hundreds in lost labor in extra sanding.

 

[cbracer]

I bought a shopvac drywall sanding kit (hand sander) which hooks up to a shopvac and really helps keep the dust down! the sand paper fits onto the bottom and you can move it side to side for closer to edge sanding. A little clumsy since you have a hose coming off the sander but so much less dust. If the wall has coats of paint on it then and only then will I take out my orbital Porter Cable. Paint is so much tougher it can handle short edge bursts on the orbital but for drywall finishing before paint anything powered will eat right through it. This is the one I have, but there's likely others:
http://toolmonger.com/2006/05/18/the-shop-vac-dustless-hand-sander/

 

[Nor'Easter]

Thanks for all the responses guys.

This is an existing home, but the machine would eventually be used for new construction.

There are rooms I need to take care of that have very lumpy/uneven paint from prior applications. I was planning on using this as a blocking layer much like I do when I block sand a vehicle. You can use the existing paint to eliminate a good amount of high spots, then you end up having to mud even less, and you know exactly where the lows and defects are.

Paint is a lot harder than mud.

 

[Fender1325]

Get a bucket of mud, and a 1/2" drill with a mixing paddle. Pour in a cup of water or maybe more, and mix it up real well. Take the widest knife you can and scratch the mud across every square inch. The knife will automatically fill the lows. A light hand sanding and you're all set. Good luck.

 

[404]

I have the porter cable electric pole sander. It can remove a LOT of mud. Over time I have evolved to put on much less material, and I mix up EZ sand 45 or EZ sand 90 from the bags of dry material. In this way I control the viscosity, and since the EZ sand actually sets up instead of just drying, things go faster.

There are 2 styles of trowels. There is the good kind, and then there is the one designed by the **** of Satan . In these pics the good one is first with the dark reddish round handle. The bad one is the overgrown putty knife. Throw that away or give it to hated in laws.

These good ones come in two versions, one has a flat spine the other is curved in underneath. One has to look along the spine to tell the diff. The curved spine is used on cut **** joints with no taper in the rock.

 

[pcmeiners]

I have the non-**** flat version. for larger sheetrocking/taping screw ups, a 4ft magnesium level works great.

"designed by the **** of Satan " Is that a Stanley product?

"I have worked jobs where guys did 2400 ft and the final clean up would not fill 3 beer bottles."
Big deal, I have worked jobs where guys did 2400 ft and the final clean up would fill 3 large beer kegs

 

[gungatim]

I tried the ROS and another sheet sander. more trouble and damage causing than it's worth.

good pole sander with screens. wet sponge, and the 3M sanding sponge with the 45 degree on one edge are my go to.

like bondo, don't put too much on in the first place so you don't have to spend hours sanding. it's an art...

 

[404]

I have the non-**** flat version. for larger sheetrocking/taping screw ups, a 4ft magnesium level works great.

"designed by the **** of Satan " Is that a Stanley product?

"I have worked jobs where guys did 2400 ft and the final clean up would not fill 3 beer bottles."
Big deal, I have worked jobs where guys did 2400 ft and the final clean up would fill 3 large beer kegs

**** of Satan by Stanley Tool Works does have a nice ring to it. Maybe it should be a wire pulling tool instead of a trowel. Don't put your ***** in either.

 

[Trey T]

If you are prepared to do a ton of sanding, I would stop there immediately because the result will be disappointing.

Typically, sanding drywall takes very little efforts when the mud is applied correctly. i.e. for a 10ftx20ft wall, I would not spend anymore than 5min sanding with a pole sander w/ screen-type sand paper.

 

[toplessHO]

get an idiot stick and an idiot to operate it.

We did a job once in an area that wouldnt allow dust and couldnt put up a dust curtain
drywall guys wet sponged everything and it turned out pretty good.
Of course there wasnt any slopping mud on either.

 

[Trey T]

It's quite a skill to master drywall mudding but one should note one main key point, always feather out the edges - ALWAYS!!!