Porter Cable Restorer

[ChrisA Edwards]

I have got 260+ Basswood, elliptical profiled, Plantation Shutter Louvers to sand before spray priming and finish painting.

I like to sand around 220 grit before and after priming.

I'm just wondering if one of these Porter Cable Restore's with a brush style drum might make the initial sanding the primer sand a bit easier.

I just wonder if this tool might be too aggressive on the soft Basswood.

The Louvers are 3.5" wide and about 32" long.

Thanks

[Curt Putnam]

Have you tried it on a piece of scrap?

[ChrisA Edwards]

I don't have one, was thinking if it works, I'd buy one.

I have plenty of scrap to test it out on.

[johnny means]

We tried the Restorer. It just wasn't up to the task. We ended up with the much more expensive Makita.

[Richard Coers]

It's been my experience that brush sanders remove the soft grain more aggressively than the hard grain. I would be afraid of texturing the basswood instead of smoothing it.

[Jamie Buxton]

Sanding the elliptical profile is going to be difficult with most power sanders. They all (specifically including this drum brusher/sander) have a naturally flat sanding surface. They'll sand the middle of your elliptical profile more than they will the edges. Your best sander is going to be your hand. It can curve to match the curved profile.

If the unsanded spindles really still need fine shaping, you can make a hand sanding block with exactly the profile you want using Bondo. There are also power sanders like Festool's LS 130 Linear Sander. The "Linear" part of the name means the sander pad only moves in a straight line, not moving in an orbit. You'd make a custom sanding block which matches your desired profile, and fits the sander. The downside is that the Festool is considerably more expensive than that Porter Cable.

[ChrisA Edwards]

Thank you all, I'll skip this idea and stick to using my Festool sanders.

I used a Festool Rotex 125 the last time, in the less aggressive mode, on my first batch of Louvers, but it was a bit tiring and this really is a two handed sander, with the power cord and vacuum hose attached, and I pretty much had to use one hand to hold the Louver.

I've since got a battery powered ETS 125 so I'll stick with that. They don't need a lot of sanding, either prior to priming or after.