Belt floor sander
Also called drum sander, the big machine
The primary material-removal machine in a refinish: a continuous abrasive belt over a drum roughly 200 mm wide, handling around 80% of total removal.
It strips old finish, levels high spots, takes out cupping and crowning, and establishes the flat plane every later machine builds on. The standard grit progression is 36 → 60 → 80/100.
Keep it moving. Stopping or hesitating creates a permanent low spot, and nothing downstream fully recovers from a bad first pass.
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- Floor edgerA compact high-speed rotating disc, typically 150–178 mm, that reaches walls, baseboards, closets, stairs and under cabinets — everywhere the belt sander physically cannot go.
- Planetary sanderA refining machine with three or more counter-rotating discs on a rotating head, producing a random multi-directional scratch pattern that blends field into edges.
- BufferA single-disc rotary machine, typically 400–500 mm, fitted with fine screens around 100–150 grit — it removes microns, not wood.
- Progressive gritsWorking through abrasives from coarse to fine in sequence, with the perimeter matching the field at every step.
- HEPA dust containmentHigh-efficiency extraction maintained throughout the sanding and finishing process, not only at final cleanup.
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