powered drywall sander for Harry multiple home owner recommendations please

[SJay]

i have the Aleko sander. It is heavy but does work for small areas. One of the best is made by Festool.

 

[Tractor Seabee]

Most DIY drywallers use too much compound at each layer the have to sand too much. A pro would rather put on more thin coats than sand. Go watch a commercial job, they do very little sanding; knock off the high points and ridges with the trowel and apply the next thin coat. Time sanding is labor money and lost product value.

Ron

 

[CurlyDave]

Total agreement.

Learn to mud it properly and you will not have to sand much at all. Start with about a 4" knife, then 6", then 8" and the sanding will be almost none.

The other thing is to use a wet sanding technique. A sponge coated with abrasive. Soak it in water and smooth the small ridges down. Very, very little dust this way.

 

[Ed of all trades]

For your joints use a bow trowel. Works great and easier by far. Ed

 

[TnAndy]

I have used a power "dustless" porter cable sander and it worked very well. It got all but about 1/10 of the dust. I would love to have one and if I did a house I would buy one. Ed

Yep. I rented a Porter Cable, which looks similar to the Aleko referenced in the OP. Coupled with the PC vac, and you have a real sanding machine. Weight seems to be about 1/2 that of the Aleko unit. I did an entire house in less than a day, and it did a GREAT job. You DO have to keep it moving, as it will sand right on thru the tape if you don't. Rental on it was about 50/day if I recall.....money well spent, if you ask me.

Someone mentioned corners....it does them with no problem...the most you might have to do is run a hand pole sander in the very corner a time or two....nearly nothing. And most of the dust was confined to the vac....not 100%....but I'd say 95%.

I later bought a far cheaper sander that was supposed to operate off the vacuum of a shop vac, and was very disappointed in it....nothing at all like the power head on the PC. Got rid of it in short order.

 

[truckdiagnostics]

I have used a power "dustless" porter cable sander and it worked very well. It got all but about 1/10 of the dust. I would love to have one and if I did a house I would buy one. Ed

its wonderful! What I have done to help keep me from going to far with the sanders is mix food coloring in with first layer of compound. It doesn't take much as it plows through it. Around here home depot rents them. Base on your OP I would buy one in a heart beat!

 

[Budweiser John]

A couple more dry wall points.
Most DIY non professionals put way more mud on the wall than really needed and attempt to spread it around. The mud should be wiped on the joint with the trowel and then sheared off with the trowel at a low
Angle. Wipe the excess mud off the trowel into the mud box and re load the trowel for the next swipe on the wall.
Use Durabond to set the tape and corner guards and 'Proform' ( black lid) for the finishing
Coats. Using a high quality dry wall primer will go a long way to conceal joint shadows in the finished job.

As stated in another post, trowel technique will eliminate a ton of sanding and dust.

B John

 

[downsizingnow48]

Most DIY drywallers use too much compound at each layer the have to sand too much. A pro would rather put on more thin coats than sand. Go watch a commercial job, they do very little sanding; knock off the high points and ridges with the trowel and apply the next thin coat. Time sanding is labor money and lost product value. Ron

That's how I do it. Very little sanding just to feather edges as the last step.

 

[newbury]

Well, as usual a ton of posts with little relevance. All the advice about how to minimize sanding is good BUT it still needs sanding.

i have the Aleko sander. It is heavy but does work for small areas. One of the best is made by Festool.

Thanks for the post. But the Festool costs well over $1,000.

Yep. I rented a Porter Cable, which looks similar to the Aleko referenced in the OP. Coupled with the PC vac, and you have a real sanding machine. Weight seems to be about 1/2 that of the Aleko unit. I did an entire house in less than a day, and it did a GREAT job. You DO have to keep it moving, as it will sand right on thru the tape if you don't. Rental on it was about 50/day if I recall.....money well spent, if you ask me.

Someone mentioned corners....it does them with no problem...the most you might have to do is run a hand pole sander in the very corner a time or two....nearly nothing. And most of the dust was confined to the vac....not 100%....but I'd say 95%.

I later bought a far cheaper sander that was supposed to operate off the vacuum of a shop vac, and was very disappointed in it....nothing at all like the power head on the PC. Got rid of it in short order.

Thanks for the data point. Rental is not an option generally because it sucks up so much time going back and forth to the rental place and I usually only work a few hours at time. The PC unit cost about $500, the Aleko about $150. Could you share what brand "far cheaper sander that was supposed to operate off the vacuum" ?

I have used a power "dustless" porter cable sander and it worked very well. It got all but about 1/10 of the dust. I would love to have one and if I did a house I would buy one. Ed

yup.

One of the things I suspect is that many of the cheaper ones are knock offs of the Porter Cable and Festool and the market has not adjusted yet.

 

[downsizingnow48]

Newbury, on sanding - if you use thin coats you will not need to sand between coats. Any ridges can be knocked off by running a drywall knife along them at an angle like another poster said.

So you have the tape setting, (6 in knife) the cover coat (8 in knife), and the finish coat (8-12 in depending). If you are going for first class product, maybe another coat after that at least in some places.

Use the green bucket mud but add a few drops of water from your knife into the pan and stir up to make it more workable than it comes out of the bucket. This makes it possible to get a thin coat with little effort. The finish coat can be, should be, pretty wet.

At this point you have three thin coats on and have done no sanding. Finish up by feathering edges as needed. You can sand a whole wall in just a few minutes with that black open mesh stuff on the end of an aluminum pole. It doesn't weigh much and it doesn't cost much and it doesn't take long.

It is a lot easier to show than to write about but I am sure a pertinent video can be found on the web.