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I have had this unit for over three years now and it has saved me countless hours of sanding mud and hiring a drywall crew. I just hook it up to a shop vac and get virtually no dust. I build custom homes and do remodel work for a living,so any tool that saves me time and makes me money is worth it. I would highly recommend this sander for anyone who is in the trades, you wont be sorry. Just a quick pass in the corners with some hand sand paper after the sander and your ready for primer and paint. The less you have to sub out.the more goes in your pocket.
I am using a less expensive no "brand name" similar product, with my cheap "homeowner" shop vac. The tool that I have used and am reviewing here, is a similar, competing product. I prefer using this tool to manual pole sanding. The $300 includes the cost of my shop vac. It is superior to manual pole sanding of 'walls' in all respects. At my local drywall supply store it would cost me $ 1000.00 for a better engineered version of the vacuum orbital sander I bought for $200.00. For about $300.00, my cheap version of this tool is heavy, yet still easier than a pole sander on ceilings, and is an improvement over pole sanding because of the dust collection via vacuum. This tool is a benefit to productivity even with its flaws, and will pay for itself in labor cost and worker health and safety savings on the first project.
Since I can buy 4 of the cheap sanders for the price of 1 brand name sander, my money is best spent on the cheap clone. Be advised that I have not used the Porter Cable Tool associated with this review, so my review is not of the Porter Cable sander itself. I consider it to be equal to manual pole sanding on 'ceilings' in terms of physical effort, with the advantage of less dust falling your way.
Virtually dust free, I could not notice any dust at all. I do wallpaper and painting for a living, which often involves wall repairs. I had no trouble learning how to use the sander, the swirl marks others talked about are easy to avoid, but even if you did leave the swirl marks, they would be undetectable through wallpaper or flat paint. This thing is going to save me a lot of labor in sanding and dust control. So far, I've only used it on two jobs, so my only concern is that it doesn't break on me.
Rent one and try it.you'll either love it or hate it by the end of the day. Furthermore, I found that it could do aggressive sanding with little more work than light sanding depending on the sandpaper grit and speed I moved the machine, as well as RPM setting.
Recently I raised a 25'x 30' ceiling from flat to half-cathedral and I did the drywall finish--smooth/no texture. I've always been curious about this sander, but the reviews left me reluctant to buy one for as little as I'd use it.
As a remodeling contractor, I usually sub out drywall finishing, but sometimes a small job or timing make subbing impractical and I'm stuck with the task. At least this power sander eliminates most of the messy part with its effective dust collection, and I was able to sand the entire ceiling in under 30 minutes.
Then I saw that my local rental center had one and this was my chance to try it. I found it to be a life-saver.Yes, it gets heavy and tiring while sanding a ceiling, but anyone who's ever used a pole sander or hand sander on a ceiling can tell you that it's extremely tiring and messy no matter the tool.
Frankly, I'm mediocre at mudding/taping, but with this sander I found that I could really cake the mud on and still end up with a nice finish.If I finished drywall full-time, I'd probably get so good at it that this machine might not be worth the hassle, but for a guy like me, it's well worth it. It's on my wish list.
you have to press fairly hard to get the sanding disk to even engage the wall. After 30 minutes of use the motor stopped working completely. while this product looks like the cats meow it is more like the cats litter box. then with this much preasure it is hard to contol. Controlling the product even with the 150 grit porter cable sanding disks is not at all easy. The dust collection control ring brush is way too long. You have to be very carefull at this point not to exert even the sligthtest amount of excess preassure or else you can hear the motor start to load down. Trying to send mine back now after the 30 minute motor waranty ran out.
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