ian maybury
02-16-2012, 11:54 AM
Hi guys. I've just hired a floor sander to do a bedroom - the floor is T&G softwood from the 1950s that's been stained, but has only light marking (was under a carpet) and is dry as a bone.
The hire people issued all sorts of dire warnings about needing to handle it carefully at risk of gouging the floor, and swore blind that the professional floor refinishing guys hire them - but this thing wouldn't drag itself out of bed. It's taking of the order of 8 - 10 passes to get down to bare wood using 40grit paper.
It's a drum type, what looks like an earlier (?) single speed version of this one http://www.hiretech.biz/products/ht8_features.html The drum is about 10in wide by about 6in in diameter, and it's plated at our 230V single phase/8A which equates to about 1.8Kw.
Which seems pretty miserable for a machine swinging such a large drum to me. It bogs and would stall if the weight of the machine was allowed to rest on the drum in use - not only is it necessary to control the forward speed, it's also necessary to keep some backwards pressure on the handle to offload the drum.
It's only possible out is that the brushes are visible and are obviously sparking heavily.
Can anybody advise what the skinny on floor sanding is? Should this machine be removing material much faster, or is it some sort of DIY grade mouse power special made for hire shops?
What do the professionals use? Am I doing something daft?
Thanks in advance,
ian
The hire people issued all sorts of dire warnings about needing to handle it carefully at risk of gouging the floor, and swore blind that the professional floor refinishing guys hire them - but this thing wouldn't drag itself out of bed. It's taking of the order of 8 - 10 passes to get down to bare wood using 40grit paper.
It's a drum type, what looks like an earlier (?) single speed version of this one http://www.hiretech.biz/products/ht8_features.html The drum is about 10in wide by about 6in in diameter, and it's plated at our 230V single phase/8A which equates to about 1.8Kw.
Which seems pretty miserable for a machine swinging such a large drum to me. It bogs and would stall if the weight of the machine was allowed to rest on the drum in use - not only is it necessary to control the forward speed, it's also necessary to keep some backwards pressure on the handle to offload the drum.
It's only possible out is that the brushes are visible and are obviously sparking heavily.
Can anybody advise what the skinny on floor sanding is? Should this machine be removing material much faster, or is it some sort of DIY grade mouse power special made for hire shops?
What do the professionals use? Am I doing something daft?
Thanks in advance,
ian