Finishing Sander
Can I get as good a finish with a orbital floor sander as with a Drum Sander on hardwood floors?
It sounds like the two answers above (that were serious) are talking about an edger, not a random Orbital Sander. An edger looks a bit like a minature fire hydrant and has an 8" spinning disc. The orbital sanders I've seen are square, with a vibrating pad about 16" x 18" or so. It has a handle and pushes across the floor like a drum sander.
So, can you get as a good a finish with either? Sort of. I use an edger to do closets and hallways where the flooring lies perpendicular to the direction of the hall--basically where there isn't space for a drum sander. I can get the floors just as flat as with a drum sander, but it's back-breaking and I've had a lot of practice.
The square vibrating (orbital) sander can be used on the whole floor, but it will not flatten the floor. If your floor is old and worn, with slightly cupped boards or height differences, or if it is brand new, unfinished and needs to be sanded in, you can't use a vibrating sander without using a drum sander first. Very occaisonally you can get by sanding a floor with only the square sander, if the floor is dead flat (use a straightedge at least 6 ft long to check) and if all you need to do is remove old wax and finish before re-finishing. I've never seen a floor that didn't need going over with a drum sander.
What I do is sand with a drum sander, 36 g until its flat (2-3 passes--more if it's really bad) than working up through the grits until it's smooth. I fill after 60 grit, re-sand with 60, then keep going. Make sure each grit removes all marks from the previous coarser grit before changing grits again, and you need to sand with a VERY slow walking pace. After sanding to 100-120 grit with the drum sander, I go over the whole thing with a square sander and sanding screens 100 grit and 120 grit. The screens leave the floor dead smooth. Some guys use a round floor buffer instead of a square sander for this step. It's faster but takes more practice to use--I can have a less-experienced worker run the square sander and know they can't screw up. I sweep, vacuum and tack cloth and get the first coat of finish on ASAP before the fresh-sanded floors can get damaged. Then 220 screen on the square sander, or 220 disc on a hand sander (doesn't take as long as you'd think), then vacuum and tack, and apply next coat etc up to 3 coats minimum, sanding between coats. Yes, this takes a long time, but done right it may not have to be done for another 25 years.
Good luck.
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