Went to Home Depot yesterday and see they have two sanders for rent.
One is a belt sander and the other is a large orbital. Both are
intended for floors. I just need to take the varnish off an old floor.
Is the big orbital the best tool for this? The room is 15x20ft. Any
idea how long this will take me or suggestions on the grit to begin
with? Thanks.

Davej wrote:
Went to Home Depot yesterday and see they have two sanders for rent.
One is a belt sander and the other is a large orbital. Both are
intended for floors. I just need to take the varnish off an old floor.
Is the big orbital the best tool for this? The room is 15x20ft. Any
idea how long this will take me or suggestions on the grit to begin
with? Thanks.

Asked at the HD? Some of them have people that know stuff.

Also Google is your friend. Have you tried it?

Lou

Grit and time will depend on condition of the floor and the species of the
wood that you are dealing with, not to mention the number of bump-outs,
obstructions, heat grills and other things you have to work around.

"Davej" wrote in message
...
Went to Home Depot yesterday and see they have two sanders for rent.
One is a belt sander and the other is a large orbital. Both are
intended for floors. I just need to take the varnish off an old floor.
Is the big orbital the best tool for this? The room is 15x20ft. Any
idea how long this will take me or suggestions on the grit to begin
with? Thanks.

On 9/18/2008 8:09 AM Davej spake thus:

Went to Home Depot yesterday and see they have two sanders for rent.
One is a belt sander and the other is a large orbital. Both are
intended for floors. I just need to take the varnish off an old floor.
Is the big orbital the best tool for this? The room is 15x20ft. Any
idea how long this will take me or suggestions on the grit to begin
with? Thanks.

I see the first two replies didn't answer your rather direct question.
Not surprised.

Generally one uses the belt sander for the bulk of the floor; the
orbital is for the edges and corners.

Use the coarsest grit you can get to start, then work your way up to a
finer grit.

It won't take all that long. However, you really need to be careful with
those machines, especially the belt sander. If you've never done this
before, you might want to practice first. If you let the sander sit a
little too long in one spot, you've got a nice gouge you then have to
try to smooth out. It's worse on softwood floors (fir, pine) than
hardwood (oak or maple). The trick is to keep the machine moving, and to
use an overlapping pattern.

The thing that takes far longer than sanding is the subsequent dust
removal necessary to do a decent job of varnishing.


--
Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the
powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral.

- Paulo Freire

On Sep 18, 10:09*am, Davej wrote:
Went to Home Depot yesterday and see they have two sanders for rent.
One is a belt sander and the other is a large orbital. Both are
intended for floors. I just need to take the varnish off an old floor.
Is the big orbital the best tool for this? The room is 15x20ft. Any
idea how long this will take me or suggestions on the grit to begin
with? Thanks.

Wood oxidises, to get it to look best you need to sand to new wood,
the belt sander is best, the orbital is used inbetween coats of Poly,
or as a cleaner-buffer on different types of floors.

Davej wrote:
Went to Home Depot yesterday and see they have two sanders for rent.
One is a belt sander and the other is a large orbital. Both are
intended for floors. I just need to take the varnish off an old floor.
Is the big orbital the best tool for this? The room is 15x20ft. Any
idea how long this will take me or suggestions on the grit to begin
with? Thanks.

The belt sander is faster but unless you are experienced using one it is
very easy to dig big gouges in the floor. Get the orbital, it will work
fine and it is also easy to do corners with it. Start with the coarsest
grit available (24?) for the varnish removal and any necessary leveling;
once that is done, work up through at least 2 grits to remove marks left by
the previous coarser grit; finish up with the screen...it *is* a screen, not
sandpaper. Total time? Been a long while since I did it but - a guess
only - three hours.

--

dadiOH
____________________________

dadiOH's dandies v3.06...
....a help file of info about MP3s, recording from
LP/cassette and tips & tricks on this and that.
Get it at http://mysite.verizon.net/xico

On Sep 18, 1:01*pm, "dadiOH" wrote:
Davej wrote:
Went to Home Depot yesterday and see they have two sanders for rent.
One is a belt sander and the other is a large orbital. Both are
intended for floors. I just need to take the varnish off an old floor.
Is the big orbital the best tool for this? The room is 15x20ft. Any
idea how long this will take me or suggestions on the grit to begin
with? Thanks.

The belt sander is faster but unless you are experienced using one it is
very easy to dig big gouges in the floor. *Get the orbital, it will work
fine and it is also easy to do corners with it. *Start with the coarsest
grit available (24?) for the varnish removal and any necessary leveling;
once that is done, work up through at least 2 grits to remove marks left by
the previous coarser grit; finish up with the screen...it *is* a screen, not
sandpaper. *Total time? *Been a long while since I did it but - a guess
only - three hours.

--

dadiOH
____________________________

dadiOH's dandies v3.06...
...a help file of info about MP3s, recording from
LP/cassette and tips & tricks on this and that.
Get it athttp://mysite.verizon.net/xico

Is he talking about a 24" orbital, it wont do corners, will it?

We used the oribital on a hundred yo oak floor that is about 12x30. We used
(and finished) with 20 grit. We spent about 24 actual sanding hours.
Looking back, we should have used the drum, but we were not familiar with
it's use and didn't want to ruin the first floor we tried. We have since
used the drum, and it takes some getting used to to avoid serious damage,
but if you have a place to practice for about 30 minutes, you'll be ok.

s


"Davej" wrote in message
...
Went to Home Depot yesterday and see they have two sanders for rent.
One is a belt sander and the other is a large orbital. Both are
intended for floors. I just need to take the varnish off an old floor.
Is the big orbital the best tool for this? The room is 15x20ft. Any
idea how long this will take me or suggestions on the grit to begin
with? Thanks.

Steve Barker DLT wrote:
We used the oribital on a hundred yo oak floor that is about 12x30. We used
(and finished) with 20 grit. We spent about 24 actual sanding hours.
Looking back, we should have used the drum, but we were not familiar with
it's use and didn't want to ruin the first floor we tried. We have since
used the drum, and it takes some getting used to to avoid serious damage,
but if you have a place to practice for about 30 minutes, you'll be ok.
....

Another "trick" in learning/beginning is to start w/ a lesser grit
paper--the work won't go so fast, but you can get the hang of how to
handle the machine w/ much less danger of digging a serious gouge or
making depressions.

As Steve says, once you've got a little cockpit time, then you can go to
the real stuff w/ more confidence.

--

On Sep 18, 10:09*am, Davej wrote:
Went to Home Depot yesterday and see they have two sanders for rent.
One is a belt sander and the other is a large orbital. Both are
intended for floors. I just need to take the varnish off an old floor.
Is the big orbital the best tool for this? The room is 15x20ft. Any
idea how long this will take me or suggestions on the grit to begin
with? Thanks.

Usually the main floor is sanded with NEITHER of the two types of
sanders you mentioned. Main areas are usually sanded with a DRUM
sander available at dedicated rental centers (not HD). But this will
only get you within a few inches of corners and walls, for that you
have to switch to a hand-held disk sander on casters, these are made
for taking down those last few inches along the walls and have side/
floor casters that roll along the crotch. The corners are done by
hand with a chiesel then a pad sander, etc. As for hand-held belt
sanders, they might be handy on stairs but usually they are useless.

The large disk (buffer style) sander you saw is for your final
smoothing or between coat buffing or to just clean up the wear patina
on an old floor that you want to recoat but not restain or fully
restore.

Drum sanders take practice and a special technique to use wihthout
gouging or causing waves and they draw a lot of current so you'll need
a 20 amp or better outlet. One mistake, and you are up ****s creek.
You also have to strap yourself onto a drum sander to not have it go
through the house wall should it get away.

For just a refinish, where you dont care about getting back down to
bare wood, the buffer orbital, going through 2 or 3 grades of
sandpaper may be good enough.

BUT if you want to stain or you want to totally restore the woods
natural color by total finish removal, you will have to drum sand
through 3 grades of paper taking off about 1/16 inch of surface in
total.

You wouldn't use the orbital _I_ rented on a stair case. It was about
12x16 inches and weighed 125lbs.

s


"Blattus Slafaly" wrote in message
...
Davej wrote:
Went to Home Depot yesterday and see they have two sanders for rent.
One is a belt sander and the other is a large orbital. Both are
intended for floors. I just need to take the varnish off an old floor.
Is the big orbital the best tool for this? The room is 15x20ft. Any
idea how long this will take me or suggestions on the grit to begin
with? Thanks.

The belt sander is for large floor areas. The orbital is for stair
cases. You also need a vibrator or block sander for corners, they are
the most fun.

--
Blattus Slafaly ? 3 7/8

the "drum" sander is referrred to as a belt now-a-days


s



"RickH" wrote in message
...


Usually the main floor is sanded with NEITHER of the two types of
sanders you mentioned. Main areas are usually sanded with a DRUM
sander available at dedicated rental centers (not HD). But this will
only get you within a few inches of corners and walls, for that you
have to switch to a hand-held disk sander on casters, these are made
for taking down those last few inches along the walls and have side/
floor casters that roll along the crotch. The corners are done by
hand with a chiesel then a pad sander, etc. As for hand-held belt
sanders, they might be handy on stairs but usually they are useless.

The large disk (buffer style) sander you saw is for your final
smoothing or between coat buffing or to just clean up the wear patina
on an old floor that you want to recoat but not restain or fully
restore.

Drum sanders take practice and a special technique to use wihthout
gouging or causing waves and they draw a lot of current so you'll need
a 20 amp or better outlet. One mistake, and you are up ****s creek.
You also have to strap yourself onto a drum sander to not have it go
through the house wall should it get away.

For just a refinish, where you dont care about getting back down to
bare wood, the buffer orbital, going through 2 or 3 grades of
sandpaper may be good enough.

BUT if you want to stain or you want to totally restore the woods
natural color by total finish removal, you will have to drum sand
through 3 grades of paper taking off about 1/16 inch of surface in
total.

"Davej" wrote in message
...
Went to Home Depot yesterday and see they have two sanders for rent.
One is a belt sander and the other is a large orbital. Both are
intended for floors. I just need to take the varnish off an old floor.
Is the big orbital the best tool for this? The room is 15x20ft. Any
idea how long this will take me or suggestions on the grit to begin
with? Thanks.

To answer your questions if I can.

At the local HD they had two types of sanders the Clark Square buff machine
and a large orbital with 4-6 heads.

All of the posted responses to date have been discussing the merits of a
true drum sander and a smaller single wheel orbital sander. The response I
have read are correct for those machines but do not address the questions
you asked.

I have never used the multihead orbital. I have used the square buff model.
It does a decent job for old finish removal if the floors are in otherwise
decent shape. The beauty of the machine is that you can not ruin your
floors with gouges like a newbie would with a drum sander. I did an
acceptable sanding job on about 750 square feet in one hard 8 hour day.

When I say acceptable I mean is was okay for rental property. I am not sure
I would have been satisfied if I had to look at it every day. A few more
passes with the finer grade of paper might have made it better.

Unless your market is radically different from mine I think with some
careful shopping that you may find that you can get a real pro to do sand
only for no more than twice the true cost (machine, paper, misc) of the
rental. This was the choice I made the next time I needed a different house
sanded. The real expense of the refinish is the many trips needed to
properly finish the floor over several days.

Good luck with your project.


--
Colbyt
Please come visit www.househomerepair.com

ransley wrote:
On Sep 18, 1:01 pm, "dadiOH" wrote:
Davej wrote:
Went to Home Depot yesterday and see they have two sanders for rent.
One is a belt sander and the other is a large orbital. Both are
intended for floors. I just need to take the varnish off an old
floor. Is the big orbital the best tool for this? The room is
15x20ft. Any idea how long this will take me or suggestions on the
grit to begin with? Thanks.

The belt sander is faster but unless you are experienced using one
it is very easy to dig big gouges in the floor. Get the orbital, it
will work fine and it is also easy to do corners with it. Start with
the coarsest grit available (24?) for the varnish removal and any
necessary leveling; once that is done, work up through at least 2
grits to remove marks left by the previous coarser grit; finish up
with the screen...it *is* a screen, not sandpaper. Total time? Been
a long while since I did it but - a guess
only - three hours.



Is he talking about a 24" orbital, it wont do corners, will it?

I figured he was talking about the big square/rectangular jobbies. If so, I
did corners when I used one.

--

dadiOH
____________________________

dadiOH's dandies v3.06...
....a help file of info about MP3s, recording from
LP/cassette and tips & tricks on this and that.
Get it at http://mysite.verizon.net/xico

ransley,

He'll need to use a hand held sander for the edges and other places
where the large sander won't fit. Still the big orbital will get the job
done fairly quickly. I think they buy back the unused sandpaper.

Dave M.

Rick,

The local HD was renting both orbitals and drums about 5 yrs. ago.
Perhaps drum sanders are not available where you live but I'd be surprised
if many HDs don't still rent them out.

Dave M.

Went to Home Depot yesterday and see they have two sanders for rent.
One is a belt sander and the other is a large orbital. Both are
intended for floors. I just need to take the varnish off an old floor.
Is the big orbital the best tool for this? The room is 15x20ft. Any
idea how long this will take me or suggestions on the grit to begin
with? Thanks.

I rented the orbital at HD a year ago, and was satisfied with the results.
Expect to spend a lot of sandpaper, much more than the cost of the rental.
But the outcome was nice.

One nice thing about the orbital is that it has a dust bag. While the
dust bag itself is useless, if you remove it and hook up a shop vac to the
port, your sanding is virtually dustless. I don;t think we spent more than
10 minutes cleaning up afterwards.

Davej wrote in news:1ad44d3e-9ac8-4f57-9bab-
:

Went to Home Depot yesterday and see they have two sanders for rent.
One is a belt sander and the other is a large orbital. Both are
intended for floors. I just need to take the varnish off an old floor.
Is the big orbital the best tool for this? The room is 15x20ft. Any
idea how long this will take me or suggestions on the grit to begin
with? Thanks.



large orbital.

If you mean the square one that has the 4 individual round pads, that's
the one I used about 9 mos ago. Did like a 10x12 floor and it came out
awesome. VERY easy to use. Once started you can actually hold and guide
with one hand (not recommended though of course).

It gets VERY close to edges and well into corners and doesn't gouge like
the drum type I've heard can. A small electric sander will get the edges.
You could even get away with a finishing sander.

The other thing I tried was using a pole with a lamb's wool (?)
applicator/cover they had there. Application is fast resulting in no
brush marks or lines. Poly is always "flowing & settling" with previous
edge.

"RickH" wrote in message
...

Drum sanders take practice and a special technique to use wihthout
gouging or causing waves and they draw a lot of current so you'll need
a 20 amp or better outlet. One mistake, and you are up ****s creek.
You also have to strap yourself onto a drum sander to not have it go
through the house wall should it get away.

Had my floors redone two months ago - their sander needed 240v power and
must have weighed more than 150 pounds.

First thing you want to keep the machine moving you want to start
pushing the machine before you advance the lever. Before you run out
of room you retard the handle all in one fluid motion. You start left
to right with the drum sander and then flip sides.

Start with a 36 grit and us a medium grit and then a high grit 100 or
so

Then some back with a square buff sander and do the edges with a 60
grit and then 100

You might have to come back with a hand square buff and do some edges
and door jams.

I would pull quarter round and trim so its a more complete job.

As for staining and sealing that is a little bit more complicated

for a more complete answer visit www.totalflooring.org

Thanks to all for the responses. I guess it is a drum sander and not a
belt. These items look like what was in the store...

http://www.homedepotrents.com/diyTools/floor_sander.asp
http://www.homedepotrents.com/diyTools/drum_sander.asp

If I tried the drum sander what grit would be safe for my initial
"education period" with less chance of doing damage? I guess I'd be ok
if I just kept the unit in constant motion? Will the drum sander use
less paper? If I went with the safer orbital what would be appropriate
starting grit for removing one layer of old varnish? Thanks again.

On Sep 19, 9:45*am, Davej wrote:
Thanks to all for the responses. I guess it is a drum sander and not a
belt. These items look like what was in the store...

http://www.homedepotrents.com/diyToo...rum_sander.asp

If I tried the drum sander what grit would be safe for my initial
"education period" with less chance of doing damage? I guess I'd be ok
if I just kept the unit in constant motion? Will the drum sander use
less paper? If I went with the safer orbital what would be appropriate
starting grit for removing one layer of old varnish? Thanks again.

If you're starting out a drum/belt sander is a much riskier
proposition for you. Unless you have 'the touch' you'll leave ripples
in your floor. Even some "professionals" leave ripples in the floor
with a drum sander. They're particularly hard to use in smaller rooms
as the start and stop marks are almost all in the same place.

The U-Sand orbital sanders that HomeDepoo rents are excellent
machines. Like everything else you rent, don't take the first one you
see. I end up Frankensteining a machine together by using the skirt
from this one, the bag from that one and always choose the one with
the best condition pads (remove the leftover sandpaper so you can see
the pad itself).

You would be hard put to mess up your floor with a multi-head orbital
sander. If your floor is in reasonably flat condition you can start
with 36 or 40 grit paper. The 24 grit is for floors that need more
work with gouges and such. Skipping grit sizes is usually
counterproductive - you _might_ save a little money, but you'll
definitely spend more time than you have to.

You can expect to have the rental machine for the full day. It's very
unlikely that you'd be able to rent the machine, bring it home, sand a
15' x 20' floor and return it within four hours.

After you've run through a grit size, and you feel it's ready for the
next step down in grit size, vacuum off the floor (always vacuum
between grits!) and wipe a section with a rag dampened with denatured
alcohol. That will show you if the swirl marks are all of a uniform
size. If the swirls are not uniform it means you are not spending
enough time on a particular grit size. It is _much_ harder (read
almost impossible) to take out coarser swirl marks if you are using
too fine of a grit paper.

R

On Sep 19, 10:32 am, RicodJour wrote:
On Sep 19, 9:45 am, Davej wrote:

Thanks to all for the responses. I guess it is a drum sander and not a
belt. These items look like what was in the store...

http://www.homedepotrents.com/diyToo...http://www.hom...

If I tried the drum sander what grit would be safe for my initial
"education period" with less chance of doing damage? I guess I'd be ok
if I just kept the unit in constant motion? Will the drum sander use
less paper? If I went with the safer orbital what would be appropriate
starting grit for removing one layer of old varnish? Thanks again.

If you're starting out a drum/belt sander is a much riskier
proposition for you. Unless you have 'the touch' you'll leave ripples
in your floor. Even some "professionals" leave ripples in the floor
with a drum sander. They're particularly hard to use in smaller rooms
as the start and stop marks are almost all in the same place.

The U-Sand orbital sanders that HomeDepoo rents are excellent
machines. Like everything else you rent, don't take the first one you
see. I end up Frankensteining a machine together by using the skirt
from this one, the bag from that one and always choose the one with
the best condition pads (remove the leftover sandpaper so you can see
the pad itself).

You would be hard put to mess up your floor with a multi-head orbital
sander. If your floor is in reasonably flat condition you can start
with 36 or 40 grit paper. The 24 grit is for floors that need more
work with gouges and such. Skipping grit sizes is usually
counterproductive - you _might_ save a little money, but you'll
definitely spend more time than you have to.

You can expect to have the rental machine for the full day. It's very
unlikely that you'd be able to rent the machine, bring it home, sand a
15' x 20' floor and return it within four hours.

After you've run through a grit size, and you feel it's ready for the
next step down in grit size, vacuum off the floor (always vacuum
between grits!) and wipe a section with a rag dampened with denatured
alcohol. That will show you if the swirl marks are all of a uniform
size. If the swirls are not uniform it means you are not spending
enough time on a particular grit size. It is _much_ harder (read
almost impossible) to take out coarser swirl marks if you are using
too fine of a grit paper.

R

Yeah I agree for a first timer the square buff you would be better
off. The drum is a unruly machine and for someone trying to do it cold
turkey could really make a bigger problem quite easily.

On Sep 19, 11:03*am, bill wrote:
On Sep 19, 10:32 am, RicodJour wrote:



On Sep 19, 9:45 am, Davej wrote:

Thanks to all for the responses. I guess it is a drum sander and not a
belt. These items look like what was in the store...

http://www.homedepotrents.com/diyToo...http://www.hom....

If I tried the drum sander what grit would be safe for my initial
"education period" with less chance of doing damage? I guess I'd be ok
if I just kept the unit in constant motion? Will the drum sander use
less paper? If I went with the safer orbital what would be appropriate
starting grit for removing one layer of old varnish? Thanks again.

If you're starting out a drum/belt sander is a much riskier
proposition for you. *Unless you have 'the touch' you'll leave ripples
in your floor. *Even some "professionals" leave ripples in the floor
with a drum sander. *They're particularly hard to use in smaller rooms
as the start and stop marks are almost all in the same place.

The U-Sand orbital sanders that HomeDepoo rents are excellent
machines. *Like everything else you rent, don't take the first one you
see. *I end up Frankensteining a machine together by using the skirt
from this one, the bag from that one and always choose the one with
the best condition pads (remove the leftover sandpaper so you can see
the pad itself).

You would be hard put to mess up your floor with a multi-head orbital
sander. *If your floor is in reasonably flat condition you can start
with 36 or 40 grit paper. *The 24 grit is for floors that need more
work with gouges and such. *Skipping grit sizes is usually
counterproductive - you _might_ save a little money, but you'll
definitely spend more time than you have to.

You can expect to have the rental machine for the full day. *It's very
unlikely that you'd be able to rent the machine, bring it home, sand a
15' x 20' floor and return it within four hours.

After you've run through a grit size, and you feel it's ready for the
next step down in grit size, vacuum off the floor (always vacuum
between grits!) and wipe a section with a rag dampened with denatured
alcohol. *That will show you if the swirl marks are all of a uniform
size. *If the swirls are not uniform it means you are not spending
enough time on a particular grit size. *It is _much_ harder (read
almost impossible) to take out coarser swirl marks if you are using
too fine of a grit paper.


Yeah I agree for a first timer the square buff you would be better
off. The drum is a unruly machine and for someone trying to do it cold
turkey could really make a bigger problem quite easily.

Yeah, you'd think my parents would have known that before they hired
my older brother and me to refinish the floor in a rental house when
we were around twenty. That's one job that never made it into the
portfolio!

R

On Sep 18, 11:09 am, Davej wrote:
Went to Home Depot yesterday and see they have two sanders for rent.
One is a belt sander and the other is a large orbital. Both are
intended for floors. I just need to take the varnish off an old floor.
Is the big orbital the best tool for this? The room is 15x20ft. Any
idea how long this will take me or suggestions on the grit to begin
with? Thanks.

Go with the orbital. No question. If the wood is cupped or uneven
then start with the coarsest grit paper they have and work up from
there.

You'll need a hand held sander to get all the way to the edges, but
the orbital will get pretty close.

Most of the floors in my house were done by pros with drum sanders
before I bought the house. There are marks and gouges all over them.
I did the living room myself with a Home Depot orbital. It is
absolutely flawless. You almost can't screw it up with the orbital.

How long did it take? Forty hours or sanding! Yeah, a drum sander
would have taken two hours, but it wouldn't look as nice. When you're
working on a 50 year old oak floor, it's worth the effort.