ᐅ Is sanding Q2 plaster yourself a viable option?

kati1337 schrieb:

Thanks, I looked into it. I’m torn about whether to buy a tool since you can get a decent Einhell sander for around 100€ (about $110), and renting one for 4 hours at Obi would already cost 50€ (about $55). Since we have an entire house ahead of us, buying might actually make sense.
But we still don’t know if we’ll do the rest of the work ourselves or hire it out. If we buy tools, then we’ll probably do more of the work ourselves, obviously.

Please don’t go for cheap low-quality equipment. What you found is probably a drywall sander, which might be suitable for smoothing spackled joints between drywall panels, but that’s about it. I don’t know how large your new home is, but we’re quickly talking about 500 square meters (5,400 square feet) or more of full-surface sanding!

I would definitely avoid any machine without dust extraction (and a suitable industrial vacuum cleaner with filter bags is necessary).

Your arms should be thicker than McDonald’s fries. This is hard work.

guckuck2 schrieb:

Please don't use such cheap equipment. What you found is probably a drywall sander, which might be suitable for smoothing filled joints between drywall panels, but that's about it. I don’t know how big your new home is, but we’re quickly talking about 500m² (5,400 sq ft) or more that need to be sanded over the entire surface!

I would definitely not use a machine without dust extraction (along with an appropriate industrial vacuum cleaner with filter bags).

Your arms should be thicker than McDonald’s fries. It’s really hard work.

Hmm, I think you can connect a vacuum cleaner to it. I should double-check. But I don’t want to sand everything completely smooth over the entire surface. I only want to go over rough spots where a few crumbs are sticking out. I’m not aiming for a perfectly smooth surface—some areas will be wallpapered anyway, in the living space.

I can only agree with @guckuck2 and warn you beforehand. It’s similar to when some people talk about sanding their wooden floors themselves. I tried it once... and it turned into a long story... never again!
Also when it comes to sanding walls, which was done here about a year ago, I would never attempt it myself.
Chances are, you’ll see the results later and will never get it to look nice. And... not all vacuum cleaners are the same, so in the end you’ll pay for expensive sandpaper, get frustrated, and end up with a poor result.
You don’t necessarily need a dust extractor, but rough sanding marks and sloppy work never look good.
At the time, I had textured paint from Haering with a 1mm (0.04 inch) grain size. If you buy something like that from your local painter and have them show you how to apply it with a wide brush, you’ll get great results, and the texture is more forgiving of mistakes. If you want, you can apply a glaze on top depending on your design preference. This is a task that you can quite easily do yourself.
As for using an Einhell and a small sander, I would have great respect for that and stay away from it.
Here, we have some areas covered with non-woven wallpaper and painted over. That’s also a good DIY option because it’s more forgiving of errors.

I also bought a drywall sander (about 120€) and sanded all the walls (Q2 finish) using 120-grit sandpaper. You can definitely feel a noticeable improvement compared to before. However, it is really hard work. I still need to fill some holes and will then apply a fleece wallpaper underlay. Whether my work is ultimately "good enough" will become clear once the first room is wallpapered.

@Stefan2.84 then I think we would all be happy here if you shared the result. (Maybe even with some pictures?)

I can do that. However, it will take a few more weeks.