After stripping wallpaper from our bathroom, the paint store gave us some incorrect advise on how to prep the walls for painting. As part of the correction to get it right this time, they now advise us to sand the drywall in the bathroom.
What is the best way to do this? My wife would like to get a sander she could use for other things as well, like sanding tabletops for resurfacing. Should we get a random orbital sander or some other kind? Would this be good for drywall as well? What brands/models/features would be good? Going to the home improvement stores there are many choices, and we're novices at this.
Hand sanding is really the only way to go since drywall mud requires such a light touch. Seriously, this is how the pros do it. Get yourself a drywall sander and a pole to put it on and some fine sanding screen and hit it very lightly otherwise you'll be taking the mud off and the paper will show through. Probably cost about twenty bucks. You might even have enough left over to get the wife a sander.
A sponge and warm water will work great for this, just if it's wallpaper just wet it down and wait until it softens up, if it's joint compound it will sand quickly as you rub it is a circular motion. I use the 9" x 4 3/4 x
Drywall is basically big plaster sheets with a thin paper coating, and more plaster (i.e. joint compound, aka "mud") applied in and over the joints between the big sheets. So, as others have already said, you want a light touch, otherwise you'll go right through the paper coating and in to the plaster. My guess is that what the paint store is telling you to do is to sand off any residual glue and bits left over from the wallpaper you removed, and level out the surface before painting. I think a random orbital sander might be too heavy-handed for this, although I admit I haven't tried it myself. If you do go this route, I'd recommend getting a smallish one, and starting out slowly on a small area to find out if you're tearing up the drywall before going to town with it.
I recently discovered a shop-vac drywall sanding attachment. This thing is great. It's basically just a rectangular plastic do-hickey(tm) that attaches to the end of your shop vac hose. Over that, you attach an abrasive sanding screen/mesh. You then hand sand with it, as you would with sandpaper wrapped around a sanding block. However, because it's attached to your shop vac, you get virtually *no* dust. I was amazed at how well it worked. My SWMBO was extremely paranoid about dust when I drywalled her office, since she had had a contractor pretty much cover her mom's house with dust while doing drywall years ago. She practically made me move everything in our house in to storage and seal off the room before she would let me sand the drywall joints on this one wall. =-) Well, there was so little dust with this thing, that she was certain that I hadn't actually sanded it, but used some sort of black magic to put the drywall up with smooth joints in the first place. I didn't need to clean up any dust after I was done, really, it worked that well. Highly recommended, at least if you're sanding the joint compound.
(Later that day, while trying to empty the shop vac in to the trash, I managed to knock it over, thus filling my workshop with the aforementioned dust, but that's a whole 'nother story.) ;-)
I have used a ROS to sand drywall compound and it is overkill. need to use slow speed and fine sandpaper or the paper on the drywall is gone in flash. Drywall sanding screens are a big improvement over hand sandpaper as they don't clog as easily and the job does go rather quickly. If it is glue and wallpaper you are sanding down then a ROS might be a little better but you still have to be very careful
drywall can be sanded (well actually the "mud") with a pole sander and mesh. HOWEVER, IF you have a cool shop vac like a Fein, with a 1 micron filter or HEPA filter option, then you can hook it up to a powered sander like a 1/4 pad sander and get no cloud of dust in the room! I did exactly that when finishing the walls of my shop. I first sanded with a hand held pad; made on hell of a mess--huge clouds of dust. I rigged up an adapter to my PC 1/4 pad sander so that I could use my Fein vac. Voila! Sanding is easier, faster, and most importantly, DUST FREE. Very little time and pressure is required to get a flat seam. You can use either drywall sanding mesh, or drywall sandpaper. I like the mesh for initial sanding--it is aggressive.
A VS ROS at a slow speed with 150 grit should do the trick, but I would do it by hand (unless I could borrow the PC wall sander from someone). Be very careful to sand only to smoothness. If you oversand, the problem isn't that you will sand through the paper layer, but you will make the paper fuzzy. Paint WILL NOT hide this fuzz. Regards, Hank
Slightly OT, similar question: does the same answer apply when you wish to get rid of the crappy texture someone sprayed on, or is a RAS or (powered) finish sander better for this?
Ceiling popcorn, scrape with a wide knife and respackle.
Anything else is anyone's guess. I've had success skim-coating with slightly thinned lightweight drywall compound. You might wanna try painting over it and see if you don't mind the texture.
And if all else fails, a wrecking bar and new rock.
"Mark Driscol" wrote in news:3f8d2f8a$ snipped-for-privacy@rpc1284.daytonoh.ncr.com:
You've gotten some good inputs on sanding, but are you sure (especially if the paint store has already given you wrong directions once) that you should be sanding? You may want to describe your situation more, and get additional advice.
FWIW, when I took wallpaper off, I skim-coated the entire wall with joint compound, then sanded & painted, to cover damage to the paper surface of the drywall.
I second that. I had a small job to do that was dust sensitive and bought one. An added advantage is that the amount of suction you use, will control how much pressure is applied to the wall.
Ceiling popcorn is removed by spraying it with water, letting it soften, and then scraping it with a scraper attached to a pole so you do it standing on the floor instead of ladder (unless you've got impossibly high ceilings, in which case, my condolences...)
John, I did precisely what you told the OP to one of my bedroom walls that had faded wallpaper. Came out great. Nothing like skim coating for renewing a wall surface!
Are they telling you to sand the wallpaper glue down? That doesn't sound like it will work very well. The glue just doesn't sand that well, and you really don't want to sand the drywall itself at all. You'll get fuzzies that no amount of subsequent sanding will remove.
Do you want a texture or a smooth wall? For a smooth wall, I'd put on a thin coat (called a "putty coat") of mud and sand it smooth. A couple hours max applying the putty coat, with an hour or less sanding the next morning. For a textured wall, it's even easier, since the texture will help hide any residual glue. Just apply the mud in the desired pattern, and again, sand in the morning.
Im not sure what exactly you are sanding. Is it remains of wallpaper backing? Are you sanding existing paint off ? or is it just wallpaper paste remains?
In any event, you are looking at sanding a large surface area of crap that loves to clog sandpaper, especially when it heats up under the electric sander.
My experience with this type of stuff is to use a fairly coarse grit (40 -60) to tear the stuff off, (if it is backing) and then re sand with fine grit. If you are sanding stuff that doesnt clog (like well hardened paint) then a finer grit say 100-120 would do. The orbital sanders are the best. The bigger the amperage and pad the better for large areas. For tabletops etc, a smaller orbital is best. I have a 5 in makita that was only $100 and have been using it for years. I really like it, and have dropped it many times without any damage. The Dewalt ones are pretty good too.
I had some heavy backing from a vinyl floor to remove from my kitchen . I have a pneumatic "bondo buster" with 40 grit paper that ripped that stuff off in a few hours. The electric orbital was useless for this. It just depends what exactly you are sanding maybe you need to rent something.
Drywall is not normally sanded with electric sanders because the filler is really easy to sand.
Hope this helps. Chris
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Let's back up. Can you please describe the problem you are trying to fix? If you have just removed wall paper and the wall is uneven you do not want to sand dry wall. Sanding the drywall will damage it. ONe would only sand joint compound once applied to the joints and nail/screw holes. If your walls are uneven you want to apply a skim coat. Basically a thined down jiont compound that is painted on.
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