Huge Success

The Supervisor was forlorn at being kept away from all the delicious goo spread on the living room floor. Shortly after this photo, he was released from kitty prison on his own recognizance. Hopefully dry DAP presents no feline health concerns.

Since I'm out of DAP and hate going to Home Despot on the weekends, I decided to start on the hallway. I hoped to be goo-ready by the end of the weekend, but I'm only about a third of the way done.


So far I am giddy with happiness over the performance of Springs the Younger. First of all, it uses a quarter of a sheet of sand paper instead of one sixth as Springs the Elder did. This makes dividing the sheets of sandpaper approximately one billion times easier, as I no longer need to math while wielding scissors, which is inadvisable at the best of times. Plus, six is not a pretty number. Four is just a couple of twos, and as any Neal Stephenson will tell you, twos are to the computer age as sea water is to Hemo the Magnificent. The larger surface area also makes working on the edges of the hallway much quicker.

Although the addition of the shop vac hose and cord detracts from the maneuverability of the sander (I feel a little like I'm being attacked by a kraken at any given time), it's a small price to pay for less dust in my everything.

The very best thing about Springs the Younger is this magical black plate. While the caveman-ready pictographs accompanying the sander clearly show that I should use it, they didn't really explain why. This made me tempted to skip this step, which would have been a huge mistake. I thought at first that the plate was just a protective cover... you know, so I didn't accidentally rough anything up when I threw the sander in my purse.



It is not. It is a triumph. When its put over the sander with sand paper on it, it leaves behind magical portals. These portals transport the sanding dust directly into the waiting belly of Stanley the Shop Vac.

 

 

I'd guess that the magical portals get about 90% of the dust that would otherwise have gone onto the floor or into the air. I'm so enchanted with this system that I looked for belt sanders that have a similar vacuum-adapter set up. If you are embarking on a project like this and in the market for a sander, I can't recommend this enough. I am confident that what this technology on a belt sander would have saved me in cleaning products (I'm looking at you, Swiffer) would have paid for the slightly higher sander price if I hadn't gotten mine as a loaner. I'm guessing the maneuverability issue would be even less noticeable on a belt sander, as they're already unruly.