drywall sanders

[vavet]

I'm working on drywalling my garage.
There must be a hieracrchy of drywall sanders. Pricewise, there's a WIDE range. I noticed some units for $20 at Lowe's yesterday, but many of them are $400+. What do the expensive units do that the $20 units don't?

https://www.lowes.com/pd/HYDE-Hand-Drywall-Vacuum-Sander/50371610

 

[cgrutt]

I'm working on drywalling my garage.
There must be a hieracrchy of drywall sanders. Pricewise, there's a WIDE range. I noticed some units for $20 at Lowe's yesterday, but many of them are $400+. What do the expensive units do that the $20 units don't?

https://www.lowes.com/pd/HYDE-Hand-Drywall-Vacuum-Sander/50371610

My guess is better filtration/dust collection. Look into some of the taping/drywall tools from Tapetech (and others) put on mud flat and eliminates much of need for sanding.

 

[PCustoms]

$400 version is probably powered.

 

[The Cobbler]

as mentioned above, the higher priced ones are powered & have a good set up for dust collection. very easy to use and virtually no dust.

the one you linked is a PITA in that if there's too much suction from the vaccum it binds to the drywall , then not enough vaccum & it doesnt such worth ****.
I have a powered drywall sander with vac attach & wonder why I didn't buy one ages ago. Wen makes a decent mid priced powered sander .

for a garage, one project, I would buy a comfortable hand held sander and clean up afterwards .

 

[shanny19]

for a garage, one project, I’d sponge it and breathe easy

 

[farooq12]

Try taptech! its the best for your proble

 

[marineengineer]

I have a wen and besides being a little loud it works pretty well. All electric drywall sanders are kind of heavy after a while. Id buy another one in a heartbeat though for doing alot of ceilings

 

[PhysicsDude]

I bought a cheapo electric sander with vacuum attachment when I did a bunch of drywall work in my house.

I don't have any experience with the more expensive units, but the ~$130 one I bought sucked up maybe half the dust, and I had to clean it a lot for it to work well. I did help - but didn't create a dust-free environment by any means. I still had to wear goggles and mask. Overall it wasn't much better than using a sanding pad on a pole by hand.

The other thing I came to realize is that drywall workers are cheap and there is a learning curve to getting good results when you do it yourself... I did about half the work in my house and then ended up hiring 2 guys to do the rest. They quoted me a price which ended up being about $12 per hour. I should have hired them from the get-go and I could have saved about $300 worth of drywall tools that I bought.

 

[beamrider]

See if you can rent one, if it's only going to be for this one project. A Porter Cable 7800 is pretty much industry standard for this.

 

[manwithtools]

For a garage, hang the rock and hire the muding and tapping. It's cheap and fast have someone that knows what they are doing finish it.

If you are using the garage to learn how to finish drywall for future projects, then that's a different story. If you decide to proceed, just use a hand sander and a pole and sanding screen. Object is - do as little sanding as possible - if you have much sanding to do, you are putting on too much mud.

 

[acer66]

I used something like the OP linked and that works for small jobs.

 

[mike93lx]

i have the exact one you linked and it works great. no, it doesn't **** to the wall...there are channels to keep air flowing

I won't do more than a simple hole patch with a sponge anymore. It makes it easy to get flat surfaces without dust.

That said, if I had a big project, I'd either hire it out or buy a powered one. Porter Cable has a well regarded one, with the Festool being the best available, but at around a grand.

 

[Larey]

I have one like the OP posted as well. Make sure to buy a dust filter that is a bag to go in the shop vac, as this makes life easier. I used the sander without many problems during a remodel.

 

[beamrider]

For a garage, hang the rock and hire the muding and tapping. It's cheap and fast have someone that knows what they are doing finish it.

If you are using the garage to learn how to finish drywall for future projects, then that's a different story. If you decide to proceed, just use a hand sander and a pole and sanding screen. Object is - do as little sanding as possible - if you have much sanding to do, you are putting on too much mud.

As a poor slob who used to get stuck with finishing other peoples rocking, I'll just say this: There's a big price difference between finishing a professionally rocked job, and finishing a DIY job. Anymore, I refuse to finish other peoples rock unless I can see it was hung correctly, and most DIY projects aren't.

 

[nelstomlinson]

Use a sponge instead of sanding.

 

[larry4406]

Guys on the job here use hand held/powered pole sanders, stilts, and dust masks.

 

[manwithtools]

As a poor slob who used to get stuck with finishing other peoples rocking, I'll just say this: There's a big price difference between finishing a professionally rocked job, and finishing a DIY job. Anymore, I refuse to finish other peoples rock unless I can see it was hung correctly, and most DIY projects aren't.

Agreed and good point. I have sen some pretty crappy rock hanging. Uisally because they are trying to use the least number of sheets possible, which creates more joints, many of them hard to finish **** joints.

For a garage, it might make sense to hire the while job turnkey.