Can I use a hand-held grinder / polisher for a floor

[darrengates]

I have a small garage (around 300 sq. ft.) with a concrete floor. I'm hoping to sand it down and polish it to make it showroom-like. I already own a 5" hand-held stone grinder. I do not have one of those large upright stone polishers that the pros have.

My question is: can I use a hand-held device to grind/polish my floor, even though it would take much longer? My local big-box hardware store rents the big devices for about $150/day, but given that my project might take a few days, this would be very expensive for me.

I'd rather just buy a set of various-grit pads and grind/polish with my handheld. I don't mind getting on my hands and knees to do this. But is it even doable, and what potential pitfalls should I look out for?

 

[darrengates]

Follow-up: I'm now looking to purchase a large polisher that I might use for this job. The rental would probably run me ~$500 for a few days, so I'm seriously considering something like this instead:

Powr-Flite Floor Machine - 20" - 175 RPM - Sam's Club

Buy Powr-Flite Floor Machine - 20" - 175 RPM : Carpet Cleaning at SamsClub.com

www.samsclub.com

Would this do the job, if I also buy a set of 20" diamond pads of varying grits? My thought is that I would probably also be able to use this machine to sand a hardwood floor in another room later this year.

 

[scottl]

This thread is a few months old. I wonder what you ended up doing. That Powr-Flite Floor Machine is a buffer/polisher for finished floors. It is not a grinder. I will not take diamond pads. I doubt Home Depot would even have one. Maybe Sunbelt or a local floor surface prep company. I have a 20" HTC floor grinder with vacuum. Maybe $15K together. It takes 9 diamonds and each set costs $450 per grit. Plus you need to match the bond to the concrete hardness, soft, medium, hard, very hard, using a moh scale test. You'll need at least 4-5 different grits. It's a big deal and not a cheap event. 300 ft is probably a one day venture though, all day. I did my first 1 car epoxy garage floor job using a 7" metabo grinder. Took me most the day to grind the floor and clean it up. Vacuum and mop it with a wet micro-fiber mop with denatured alcohol on it. Apply an epoxy primer. Wait 12 hours and put another coat of epoxy on it. 2.5 gallons