Big Bolt Blues

Well...I tried doubling up the blue pads...Didn't work, it didn't spin and they pulled right off the bottom of the machine.
So last night I cut out and glued another piece of 1/4" plywood onto the bottom of the Pad Driver.
So far so good today...I got 2 more rounds of sanding done on the whole room, both with the 36 grit sandpaper.
Next step is to move on to a higher grit...Which also means I'll be going from sandpaper to those mesh screens that cost twice as much as the sandpaper (6 times as much in this case because I got the sandpaper on clearance for $2 a piece).

I'm working it very meticulously so as to not leave any 'swirls' from the sander in the floor. I learned from the first floor I did that even the slightest marks left from the sanding will be made really obvious by the stain and polyurethane. But, as I learned when I took my first metalworking class in college...The first sanding is to get everything smooth and the sanding with subsequent grits is to remove the marks left by the previous sanding. So today's sanding with 36 grit sandpaper is mostly just to get out the marks that the 20 grit sanding left on the floor.
I think the next grit (the first screen) is a 60. I don't remember how high I go before I stain and poly, it's been a couple of years since I did the last floor. So I'll read the directions on the cans (of stain and poly) after I do the next grit.