Bob Vila lied to me

Growing up, I used to watch This Old House with my dad on PBS.  So when I was looking around the internet for advice on how to DIY refinish my kitchen floor, I listed to what Bob Vila had to say on the subject.

Unless you plan to sand many floors in your lifetime, the best choice for do-it-yourself floor refinishing is the random orbital sander. Sure, it may take longer to remove old finishes than it would with a drum sander, but you don’t need a lot of experience to operate a random orbital sander and most importantly, it’s less likely to permanently damage your floor by causing grooves or valleys that are impossible to fix.

Inexperienced?  Check.  Want to not damage my floor?  Double check.  Ok, Bob.  I’ll rent an orbital sander.   I rented one at Home Depot–the same brand he recommended and everything!

As it turns out, Bob Vila is a damn dirty liar.

Ok.  Yes.  If your goal is to 100% avoid gouging your floor, and you want a sander that’s easy to control, by all means use a random orbital sander.  It was easy to use.  It never got out of control.

It also didn’t sand the floor.

We started with 36 grit sandpaper (which Bob recommends against: “Avoid using grits coarser than 60; this will help keep you from damaging the flooring.”  It should be clear that Bob Vila is more interested in you not damaging your flooring than with you successfully refinishing it.)  After a few passes in the alcove, I was very :((((( that it didn’t seem to be sanding well.  Jason suggested that I start with the 24 grit instead.  So I went back to Home Depot, got 24 grit, and was full of optimism (I did not yet know that Bob Vila is a liar).

Four hours later, our floors were not stripped.  We were maybe maybe halfway through the 24 grit.  And then, there would be 60 grit, and then 100.  We would never finish.

Last night, at 5:00, we gave up on the orbital sander (Jason asked what we would do when we inevitably didn’t finish the floor at the end of our 24-hour window.  Would we keep it another day?  Throw in the towel and call the pros? Rent a drum sander?  I said we should just skip to that last thing.)

So.  We rented a drum sander, and basically started over again.

This photo shows ~4 hours of orbital sander-ing (on one of the best looking parts!) versus ~10 minutes with a drum sander.  Sold.

So yes.  The orbital sander was less likely to run away and gouge or otherwise damage my floor, but it was also less likely to–y’know–sand.  If your only metric is “unlikely to do damage,” then by all means, use an orbital sander.  But if you want to actually strip your floor, get a drum sander.  And shoot Bob Vila a dirty look while you’re at it.