Browse Forums Flooring & Floor Covering 1 Oct 30, 2009 11:17 am I had planned on using a Drum & Edge sander to do my floors. However there are only 2 local places that hire them out - 1 place had REALLY ******* looking machines without height adjustment (one was actually broken and the other is booked this week anyway), the other is booked out for a while. As I'm trying to keep costs low - hiring a professional is out of the question. Also, normally I would wait, however time is of the essence and I need to get the floor done this week. What are my options? I'm really considering buying a good quality hand orbital sander (biggest available) from Bunnings and a boatload of sandpaper. It will be hard work, and take a lot longer (i have this weekend and all this week after work) - however I figure costs won't be any more than hiring and I won't have the risks of using a Drum sander. Below is fairly typical of the floor - the lounge room is a lot better condition. Two small side rooms have underlay glued down (black yucky stuff). Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Re: Floor sanding - without drum sander? 2Oct 30, 2009 11:49 am Don't buy orbital you will never get it finished in time, you need a belt sander and a nail punch to push the nails down first. 3 grades of sand paper course medium and fine Where you are coming from is where you are going to... Re: Floor sanding - without drum sander? 3Oct 30, 2009 1:04 pm Aye, I finished punching the nails down yesterday. Only thing left to do is sand (and figure out lino to timber transitions). Is there any trick to Belt-sanding? I've read that you can easily groove in and create tracks if you arent careful. Re: Floor sanding - without drum sander? 4Oct 30, 2009 1:13 pm yep don't stay in one position... Keep the sander flat. get some knee pads that don't mark. ...and a few bevvies for after Where you are coming from is where you are going to... Re: Floor sanding - without drum sander? 5Oct 30, 2009 1:23 pm onc_artisan yep don't stay in one position... Keep the sander flat. get some knee pads that don't mark. ...and a few bevvies for after Let's hope it's that easy! At least I'll own a belt & orbital sander after all is said and done! Just hope I don't have to buy a new floor! PS. Think I got a couple 6packs tucked away in the fridge too! Re: Floor sanding - without drum sander? 6Oct 30, 2009 1:41 pm After this you will have your own 6pack I find that the start of a project can have a J curve, but the hardest thing is to look only at a small area. Not the whole job... (mtr X mtr as they say) Where you are coming from is where you are going to... Re: Floor sanding - without drum sander? 7Nov 02, 2009 1:40 pm So I purchased an el-cheapo beltsander (suprisingly good) & orbital sander on Friday, and stocked up with sandpaper - and got to work on the weekend sanding my floor....sort of. Work was done as follows: Saturday - 9:00am - 12:48pm (ALONE) Sunday - 9:00am - 9:40am (ALONE) 9:50am - 11:30am (2 PEOPLE) Saturday I started the main bedroom. I was stuck in this same room all weekend. Belt-sanding in itself isn't that hard. However it is hard on the body - mainly due to the time required to do the sanding! It's not too bad on the arms. It is very difficult to get into a comfortable position however. Most of my time I was sitting on my bum or crouched on one knee. Frequent breaks were needed not only to: empty dust bag, clean saftey glasses, stretch legs/back, fresh air or drink. By the end of Saturday I had probably ONLY done a THIRD of the main bedroom with 40 Grit. Laughable I know. My dad stopped by just as I was finishing and offered to come around Sunday and help a bit. Sunday I was back in the main bedroom for a bit before my Dad came around. He had a bit heavier-duty belt sander which made it a bit easy. We put in a solid effort and got the main bedroom done with 40 grit. The main problem with the belt-sander is it doesn't take off enough timber (weight and width). Using the 40 Grit you have to make several passes with solid downward pressure to take off ridges BUT you also have to be careful not to make edge grooves especially in soft timber. Some places on the floor were fairly raised and neighbouring lower board edges didn't get hit by the belt. I mowed it down as good as possible to get rid of lips and big ridges. I'll hit the valleys with the Orbital today. At the end of each day I wasn't sore - mostly stiff and depleted. So what now? Well I'm very well contemplating hiring a drum-sander from the next city over (hour round trip). I have no doubt I could do the whole house with the belt-sander, however I fear it will: take too long, use too much sand-paper, creates a lot of mess and generally is not very efficient. If I was doing just the one room, I would definately try a belt-sander, especially if you want to finesse it to perfection. PS. Sorry for the long-winded post - thought it might be useful info to someone else trying it out in the future. Re: Floor sanding - without drum sander? 8Nov 02, 2009 2:17 pm I wouldn't even consider doing a floor like that with a small belt sander. You should be able to get the sanding done for around $15-$18 sq. metre. Probably wouldn't work out that much more than buying/hiring stuff plus all the work Re: Floor sanding - without drum sander? 9Nov 02, 2009 3:39 pm I rang 8 different floor mobs in the area and not a SINGLE one could give me a quote on just sanding the floor as they only had sand + finish prices. The minimum costs I was looking at was $2300 - which is a good part of a months wage for me. To be honest the cost to do it myself is a lot cheaper. Drum sand hire is $108 for a weekend, add in $50 for papers. Belt sander & Orbital sander (and a heap of papers) cost $140. Finish is around $150-180. Extras (safety gear, brushes, applicator) - $50. Total $500-600. (I could have got away without buying the belt-sander/orbital if I was going that path). So for a saving around $1700 - I have to dedicate a couple weekends and afternoons after work. Considering I sit on my arse anyway, I think it's a brilliant trade-off! Re: Floor sanding - without drum sander? 10Nov 02, 2009 5:14 pm You will still have to add the cost of the floor finish and applicators etc to that $1700 saving Re: Floor sanding - without drum sander? 11Nov 04, 2009 1:11 pm Dukekamaya You will still have to add the cost of the floor finish and applicators etc to that $1700 saving Yea I did : ) Finish is around $150-180. Extras (safety gear, brushes, applicator) - $50. Managed to book a drum sander in this weekend (they got it couriered in). Re: Floor sanding - without drum sander? 12Aug 08, 2011 4:47 pm Arent these things only around $130 per day from kennards? http://www.kennards.com.au/index.php?fu ... hers&lvl=2 Re: Floor sanding - without drum sander? 13Aug 08, 2011 4:52 pm Most definately hire a sander, you will regret it if you go to all that expense of coatings and find that the gloss finish highlighted every little perfection you thought would not be seen. Been there done that, hire the sander. This certainly doesn't look good. I would be engaging with an independent inspector to have a look at this. As for the unscheduled site visits, most builders are quite… 1 28319 Elvis has left the building... The site supervisor quit after 2 month on the project. I guess he was just instructed to bark at people, but didn't like when he was… 26 20901 Hi, I contracted a Builder to do a Garage to Bedroom + ensuite conversion (Class 1a), the Builder engaged the Certifier and Engineer and received BDA from the Certifier… 0 5015 |