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Notes -
I have to ask, what sort of sander were you using, with what grit sandpaper? Did you have any sort of dust extraction?
Cause I can totally see you sanding and sanding away with a palm sander, using 400 grit sandpaper, with nothing but the bag it comes with.
Like this, but older and smaller. Part of the reason why I didn't put any weight or movement on the thing is that the paper kept getting away from the clip in the beginning (I fixed it early, but by that point I'd internalized the lack of movement recommended by the internet). Then I bought a triangular one, still small.
All 40 sandpaper. My even earlier attempt at solving the problem was trying to find sandpaper with 2 grit or something, but 40 was as low as they went.
So, there are a few areas where sanding will go wonky on you. The first is you have shitty sandpaper that wears out too quickly. I recommend sticking with 3M sandpaper. The second is that the sandpaper clogs up. All those palm sanders have a slight suction effect, but attaching them to a dust extractor will have you humming along effortlessly for hours if need be. And with the specific type you linked, that has more of a vibration mechanism than a scraping mechanism, I find I have to move them just to get the dust out from under them. I use them as a last resort when they are the only tool that fits into the space.
And if you are removing a lot of paint, I'd recommend a scraper first, as I've found paint gums up sandpaper even faster than normal.
But I'm a relative layman.
Yeah it didn't have a sucker and the paper was generic. I think the paint or lacquer was extremely tough, or maybe you’re not supposed to get all the way down to just the wood? Anyway, once I treated the entire machine as if it was just inert sandpaper and used massive amounts of down and side force, it worked okay.
Yeah, if it were me, I'd have used some sort of solvent to remove the paint or lacquer. My wife actually used this orange based paint stripping stuff to take the paint off all the countertops in the kitchen. Worked amazing, and it took zero effort with a paint scrapper to remove the resulting goo.
Depending on the finish, a cabinet scraper can be magical, if you don't like solvents.
Not sure it would work for stairs due to access issues, but it's great for stuff like tables or gunstocks.
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