Sanding plastered walls? General decorating topics, questions and answers. find help, tips and advice on completing your decorating projects

[Monkfish]

I'm trying to get my walls as flat as possible and would like someone to recommend a sander with a vacuum bag for the job. Some of these sanders seem a little Mickey Mouse to me and there are so many different types (flat, belt, orbital).

My wall consists of two flat emulsioned plaster surfaces either side of a central unpainted plaster infill where a partitioning wall once stood. This plaster infill is pretty rough and the two flat walls either side do not precisely align (one is proud by 1-2mm). I need a good sander that will sand everything as flat as possible with the minimum of dust ready for tiling (I'm going for tiling to hide as much as possible). Re-plastering the walls is not really an option.

[theshedman]

Hi Monkfish, if you are going to tile the walls and there is only a 1-2mm difference why do you need to sand them. The tile adhesive can be put on to cover this difference.

[Monkfish]

Well the bit in the middle is sticking out a bit further and I may need to rub the painted wall on one side down a bit. I could do it by hand, but it makes a mess. Will a standard rotary sander with dust bag or vacuum attachment do the job? I could buy one of those off ebay for around £20.

[theshedman]

Hi, yes I would have thought so. You will need to keep giving the sandpaper a brush off as they tend to get clogged up. But by the sounds of what you have said it shouldn't take very long to do and if you are tiling it you wont need to worry about it being too flat. Good luck.

[Monkfish]

Thanks :)