Universal solvent, my rump.

My phone is currently suffering from IOS 7, so things have been a bit delayed, because my pics were being persnickity. Today = a gazillion posts to catch up.

I've finished using the 40 grit belt sander on the majority of the hall, but it doesn't do very well at getting close to the walls, so I need to follow with the smaller, palm sander. Unfortunately, the area close to the walls is also covered with drywall mud from when the walls were put up.

This stuff is nasty. It takes forever to sand, and it clogs the sand paper. When I worked on the clown room, my father assured me that if I got it wet, it would wipe right up.  Another friend of mine who is Knowledgeable About Things said the same thing... "it wipes right up!".

 

It does not wipe right up. I soaked the stuff with water, and tried to wipe it up. No luck. So I got it wetter and left it for 15 minutes. This was slightly better, once I tried using a sponge with scrubby stuff on the back, but an hour of scrubbing only got me a few feet down the hall. Plus the motion of scrubbing is not significantly different from sanding by hand... its not easier, its not faster. The only benefit I can see right now of doing this manually is that I'm saving money on sand paper, and gaining some gross whiteish water. Tomorrow I'm going to try soaking it for an hour.

 

 

At this stage, the other problem I'm trying to solve for is screws that don't go all the way into the wood. In the clown room it was all nails, which I used a set to drive deeper. The screws are a little rougher to deal with. My cordless drill doesn't have enough torque to drive them in, and doing them by hand is even worse. I'm currently researching (read: asking my dad) what I should be doing. I don't want to take them out unless I can replace them with nails or something, and I'm not sure what the pros and cons of this are. Though if it makes the floors creaky and haunted mansion, I'm all for it.