Tools, Sharpening and Power Machinery - shopvac/ random orbital..drywall

Howdy folks......made a discovery today. I bought a drywall sanding kit through home depot. This is basically some hose and a 5 gal. pail filled with water to catch the dust and vacum as your sanding. I was skeptical of this since I've always done it the hard way by hand with tons of dust unless I was using a porter cable sander through a rental place. The kit came with a special sander and you can only use mesh with it. I like mesh but for me no matter what grade I use it always leaves scratches vs either a sponge or sand paper. Wheels started to turn and I said geeeeeez why can't I connect my random with some 240 grit. It did a great job with minmal dust! My new thought is why can't I just route the hose directly in my shopvac filled with water and eliminate this 5 gal pail. That way I can get my 40.00 back! Has anyone else tried this????


Thanks
Tom

Might work, but you'll probably need a filter designed to work with water. You'll wreck the paper filter.

When I've gouged things with the mesh, it was usually because I was pressing too hard. Light pressure works better for me.

I use a shopvac with a HEPA bag filter to catch the dust as it pulls it from my random orbital sander.

I thought about the filter as well.......though my thoughts were the water would trap the dust.....I was thinking dual action here...with the dry filter and water below....I may have to just pull the filter off.I've sanded dywall dust with it before but never with water in it. You have to keep pulling the filter off which is messy! I'm excited here since drywall vacs are costly and even more so for a porter cable drywall sander. I'm in the painting bizz and once in awhile I'll hang a few sheets of drywall but primarliy I just patch trouble areas. This would be the ticket for a cleaner job since I've dusted out many of my customers!

If you pull the filter off, you might exhaust the dust all over the place. If you have a wet/dry vac, just make sure the filter is ok with water.

Thanks for the input folks!!!