Sanding floors can transform a tired wooden floor into a beautiful floor that is ready for finishing. However, the moment you begin to consider what type of floor sander you should rent, there are a variety of sanders available to assist you. Each type of floor sander has a specific purpose and use case.
Choosing the wrong type of floor sander can make your job not only difficult, but also result in uneven floors that lack the appeal that you require of your floors. The best way to understand each type of floor sander is to understand the purpose of each of these tools. Based off these understandings, you can make an educated decision about which type of floor sander to rent and use on your floors.
The primary types of floor sanders are presented below, going from the most heavy-duty sanders to the most fine-tuned sanders.
Common Types of Floor Sanders to Use
1. Drum Sanders
Drum sanders are the most common type of floor sander and the one most people envision when they hear the word sander. These floor sanders use a large rotating drum with sandpaper that removes the old finish from the floors and even out any high spots.
Floor sanding contractors often use drum sanders for large wooden floors, such as oak or pine floors. Drum sanders can go from 40-grit sandpaper to 80-grit sandpaper in one go without changing machines. However, the aggressive nature of drum sanders often makes beginners regret their decision to rent one of these tools.
Drum sanders cannot forgive the mistakes of beginners who take breaks or hesitate while sanding with them. Any breaks in the movement of the sander will damage the floor, and the damage will have to be fixed later. Additionally, it takes time for the average person to get used to the constant movement and pressure that a drum sander require.
For large areas and thick coatings of old finish, though, there is nothing better than using a drum sander.
2. Orbital Sanders
Orbital sanders take an alternative approach to sanding floors as compared to drum sanders. Orbital sanders use a large rectangular pad that moves in small circles to sand the wood.
This orbital movement of the pad is the same as the random movement of a random-orbit sander. As a result, there are fewer swirl marks on the wood that gets sanded. This sander is also less likely to dig into the wood.
Professionals prefer orbital sanders for the finishing stages of sanding as well as for sanded softer woods. The orbital sander’s gentler approach to sanding allows people to use higher grit sandpaper on the floor without having to worry about sanding one area too much. However, the downside of an orbital sander is the speed at which it moves.
Orbital sanders cannot sand as fast as drum sanders can remove old finish. To avoid this problem, most professionals will first use a drum sander to remove the old finish from the floor before using an orbital sander to finish sanding the wood. Orbital sanders are appropriate for mildly worn floors or antique pine floors.
Additionally, they are quieter and lighter than drum sanders, which is a an advantage when sanding for eight hours straight.
3. Edgers
Edgers are a specialized tool that resolves the problem that other sanders create. Most sanders must stop a few inches from the wall since they could damage the wall.
The area that is not sanded will look bad compared to the rest of the room after sanding the floor with other sanders. An edger is a disc sander on wheels with a dust shroud. It can sand the floor up to the baseboards without damaging them.
The learning curve for edgers is steeper then they would like you to imagine. Edgers will naturaly want to pull the edger towards the wall. If you use the edger incorrectly, you can create swirl marks on the sanded floor.
Once you get used to correctly using an edger, though, it will become one of the most indispensable tools that you can rent for your job. Many people who do work on weekends will underappreciate the utility of one of the most important tools until they see the crisp line between the main floor and the wall, the difference that the last six inches of sanding can make.
4. Buffer Sanders
Buffer sanders, also known as floor polishers, are the last step in the sanding process that most people dont see coming.
The floor will have been sandedly prior to the incorporation of a buffer sander that has a soft white or beige sanding pad and screens of increasing grits. Buffer sanders spin at a lower rate than edgers and use a large pad to ensure even weight is distributed across the sanding area to avoid hollow spots. Using screens of 120 grit, 150 grit, and 220 grit under a buffer sander will raise the grain enough for the finish to adhere to the wood without creating sanding marks.
Users will be surprised at the amount of sawdust that a buffer sander will pull up despite having vacuumed the floor several times prior to sanding with the buffer. This last pass will reveal any grit that may have been left behind by the other sanding machines. In addition, buffer sanders are used to apply wax to newly sanded floors or to abrade the wood between coats of polyurethane floor finishes.
For these reasons, renting a buffer sander for an additional day of work could save a person time compared to the cost of renting the machine since sanding the final portions of a floor by hand is an endless task.
5. Belt Sanders
Belt sanders are an intermediate machine between the others. They are smaller than drum sanders and have more power and force compared to orbital sanders.
Belt sanders use a loop of sandpaper that is stretched between two rollers. Portable belt sanders are often used on stairs, in hallway areas, or in rooms where the floor area is small. On larger jobs, belt sanders may be used to blend the marks left by the drum sander or to sand along the grain in areas with narrow wooden planks where an edger may be too wide to use effectively.
Although the compact size of a belt sander may be tempting to use for the entire sander job, using this tool for too long will result in frustration. The force with which a belt sander sands the wood can result in visible marks where the areas overlap. Additionally, the smaller sanding surface means that the belt sander takes longer to sand large areas of wood floor.
Therefore, it is best to save the use of a belt sander for detail work on the job to appreciate the precision that the tool allows while sanding, without getting frustrated by the limitations of the tool.
6. Multi-disc Sanders
Multi-disc sanders have become increasingly popular in the last decade. These tools have three or four orbital heads that sand in different directions within a shared frame to allow the tool to balance the features of orbital sanders with the power of a buffer sander.
The advantage of the counterspinning heads is that the tool will sand in a straight line without drifting to one side of the floor. When floor professionals encounter areas of both hard and soft spots, each head can sink into the individual areas rather than forcefully sanding into the wood. These tools are more expensive and heavier than other sanders, which limits their use in most weekend tool kits.
When using these sanders on large commercial spaces or homes with various types of wood flooring, the even sanding of the entire floor area is a benefit that justifies the higher cost of renting a multi-disc sander. For standard homes with residential wood floors, however, the cost of renting a multi-disc sander isnt cost effective compared to using a drum and orbital sander. No matter which type of sander is selected for the work to be performed, the real key to achieving an even sanded floor is in the steps and the sequence of grit sandpaper that is used rather than the machines that are used.
Coarse grit sandpaper should be used initially and worked through to finer grits in sequence while vacuuming the floor between each grit. The machine that seems perfect for the first day of work will likely develop frustrations after the third or fourth day of work. This is the reason why many floor finishers with experience own a few machines of each type instead of renting just one machine for each job.
The type of floor that is being sanded will determine which sander does the job the best. A hundred-year-old floor plank with three generations of footprints will fight back against a drum sander but will yield nicely to an orbital sander. A moddern floor with a layer of polyurethane will fight back against any sander except the drum sander that can cut through the thick coating.
Each tool has its strengths and weaknesses. By learning which tasks each sander can complete and understanding their limitations, wood floor finishers will develop an appreciation for the tools and respect the capabilities of each tool.
