Scraping and hand sanding is killing me. Does anyone know of a sander that will take out the swirl marks left from the edger? I've tried a variety of palm sanders and they all seem to leave tiny swirl marks of their own. On a natural finish they dont show very much but with a dark stain they become very distinctive. The hand held belt sander works well down the length of the wall but won't clean up the short ends as its pad is bevelled up at the front. I'm looking for a had held sander that has a straight back and forth motion to it and is able sand up to the wall. I am thinking about trying to attatch a rectangular sanding pad to my sawsall. If anyone has any suggestions I would appreciate them.

What are you fine edging with (grit)? You should be using 100-120 grit which should be leaving minimal marks. should swirl marks still be there....try using a osilating round palm sander with 100 grit, any "phonecord" marks from that should come out easy with the buffer which I also like to use 100, pending on species! hope this helps!!!

I agree on using the 100 grit edger discs. Also try using a felt pad under those discs. When I need to reduce swirl from the edger, I'll use a felt back up pad. An random orbital sander with 80 to 100 should not leave any noticeable marks. But sanding by hand is the old tried and true method. There's an old floor sander's saying, " If you don't put the scratch in the floor, you won't have to take it out." Learn to edge with minimal scratch.

Easier said than done, esp. for a DIY like me. I wished I use a finer
grit with the edger than I did. Edgers are fast but aggresive. Left swirl marks that the orbital couldnt take out.

You shouldn't be skipping more than one grit at a time either. If you're a DIY you should probably be sanding with every grit home depot offers: flatten/strip with 36grit, then use 60 grit, move to 80 grit, and finish with 100 grit. Then sand with a random orbit palm sander 60 grit, then finally hand-sand with 60 or 80 grit (depending on wood species). Then you want to use a buffer (I like a rotary one but DIY would fend better with a square one) at least one pass with 100 to 120 grit paper/screen to blend edger work with drum sander work.

Gary's right though, the scratches are there because you don't know how to use the machines. When I used to work for the "big" hardwood companies before I started on my own, we'd sometimes look at a new construction floor and if wasn't to hacked up by the other trades we'd turn to each other a yell out "ONE CUTTER". This meant we were going to edge using 80 grit only, hand-sand, buff and stain. Floors looked perfect.

36, 60 then 100 is fine.. Going 80 then 100 is overkill. PUT THE BELT SANDER (handheld) AND SAWZALL DOWN AND WALK AWAY FROM THE FLOOR! .....the floor police have arrived.
put a pad under your sander....esp if you are a diyer.... makes the edger much less aggressive