Dust Free Sanding with Fiba Tape Sander

Painting and Decorating Concourse

734-464-3883

Dust free sanding - the goal of any drywall repair and finishing job, what used to be impossible - has become a possibility with the advent of HEPA filters and some ingeniously designed vacuum attachments. It is worth noting that while it is not absolutely, totally dust free it is very close to that.

Dust Free Sanding part 1

(well almost)

Long gone are the days when you had to cover everything in sight with plastic and put on a coverall and you let 'er rip with the pole sander. In the end there would be dust all over you, all over the floor and all over everything in sight.

Now with the advent of HEPA filters you can properly filter your vacuum ,using the right attachment and a simple dust mask -hardly have to cover up anything at all. The keys to this system are 1. The HEPA filter. Shop Vac now offers a HEPA filter for most of it's vacuums for wet and dry pickup made by Gore Industries. If you don't want the wet pick up capability, they also offer a dry pick up only version for a few dollars less. The definition of a HEPA filter is one that is 99.97% efficient down to 0.3 microns (particle size), which is fine enough to trap even drywall dust

There is one "trick" to using the HEPA filter for this type of vacuuming, you have to "pre-filter" the bigger particles or you will end up with a clogged vacuum with no suction. The way you pre-filter is to use a collection bag upstream from the final HEPA filter. The collection bag traps the bigger particles and yet still allows air to pass through it so that your vacuum isn't choked. The air that passes through the collection back is then filtered with the HEPA filter on its way out. Shop Vac calls there bags "drywall collection filter bags", they are yellow in color and come in various gallon sizes.

The second key to this system is 2. The vacuum sanding attachment. I have tried a couple of these and the simplest and most effective attachment in my opinion is the one made by Fiba Tape. The sander attachment attaches to the vacuum by joining the hose end to the vacuum hose - no tools necessary. There is no water bucket setup with this system to catch the dust into, it's just vacuum and attachment.

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