sanding balusters

[Kevin Gagne]

I am re-finishing the mahogany balusters on my deck and I am looking for a way to sand them. They are turned and contain many profiles. When I originally finished them many years ago I sanded them by hand but I am looking for a faster way this time. Has anyone used this Sand-O-Flex product before or similar products you would recommend? http://www.woodcraft.com/family.aspx?FamilyId=254

[Peter Quinn]

Top of my head I'm thinking your going to want to sand with the grain to avoid cross grain scratching, and that device seems like it wants to go the other way. I also worry it would remove some detail if you did get it to go with the grain.

Have you considered a Fein Multi Master?

[Kevin Gagne]

While I would love to get the Multi Master it is too expensive and looks like it would still take a lot of time with the detail sander. I already have a detail sander so I could try to see how slowly it would go. I would think that as long as the grit it not too rough I shouldn't remove much of the detail with the sanding wheel. It is on an outside deck though so I would be OK with losing a litle detail if it meant I could get it done sooner. I have a lot of balusters to do and a limited amount of time.

[David Gilbert]

Several years ago I refinished a Jenny Lynn bed that had many spindles. I used a Sand-o-Flex and it worked pretty well. As I remember there were several different grits available. I think that may be the only time that I used the unit so it's not cheap if you won't ever use it again. I finished the bed with polyurethane and it looked pretty good. If there were scratches, they weren't very noticeable.

Another option would be to get some cloth backed sandpaper, tear it into strips and pull it back and forth.

Cheers,
Dave

[john bateman]

I am re-finishing the mahogany balusters on my deck and I am looking for a way to sand them. They are turned and contain many profiles. When I originally finished them many years ago I sanded them by hand but I am looking for a faster way this time. Has anyone used this Sand-O-Flex product before or similar products you would recommend? http://www.woodcraft.com/family.aspx?FamilyId=254

I used one of those sanders (briefly) on stairway balusters, attempting to remove the old varnish so I could paint them. The flex strips didn't really apply enough pressure to remove the varnish well, and they rounded over any square edges that they contacted.

[Greg Crawford]

Klingspore has (or had) a sanding mop. Very gentle on profiles.

[Richard Wolf]

First, I don't think sanding across the grain is the real problem, they were sanded across grain on the lathe when they were made.
I have refinished a few staircases in my time, mostly when I first started in the stair business. I would suggest, that if you can, in any way, remove the balusters from the deck and mount them on a lathe to resand them, you will do a much better job then any other method.
The time it takes to disasemble the rail may prove to be short as compared to the time spent trying to sand in place.

Richard