robrmcc
07-25-2007, 03:12 PM
I realized today that in a previous thread I had offered to post pictures of a homemade thickness sander we made, then I promptly forgot. Here are the pictures, if I have done this right.
This drum sander picks up its power at the top-rear arbor on the headstock using a flexible coupling. The sander sits on the way tubes and used to clamp on there, but I don't bother doing that anymore, the weight keeps it in place. The roller I bought at a surplus store, it is a 2.5" conveyer belt drive roller. It is mounted in place with pillow block bearings that are shimmed so the roller is parallel with the table and the drive shafts line up. The table is 1" plywood with 1" square steel tubing frame to make it ridgid. Sandpaper is held on with hose clamps that have the tightening mechanisms at 180 degrees to each other so they are relatively balanced. The springs you see keep the table under tension so it does not vibrate. Dust collection is a 4" PVC pipe with an adapter to fit our dust collection. Adjustment is via a single screw at the front which is a cut up C-Clamp . I have taken the pictures while the unit is just sitting on a garbage can cause I have the shopsmith set up to make guitar kerfing and I did not want to have to re-align it. As I said in earlier post we have used this for 6-7 years and even though we have a 3Hp General drum sander now we still use this one. BIggest drawbacks (other then being hand fed) are it only has 1-1/2" working thickness and the pillow block bearings keep going out. I should likely buy better ones. We use it for small parts and precision thicknessing. Sometimes we also pull off the cover and use the roller to shape headstocks and stuff by hand.
My apologies again for the poor pictures.
Rob McC
This drum sander picks up its power at the top-rear arbor on the headstock using a flexible coupling. The sander sits on the way tubes and used to clamp on there, but I don't bother doing that anymore, the weight keeps it in place. The roller I bought at a surplus store, it is a 2.5" conveyer belt drive roller. It is mounted in place with pillow block bearings that are shimmed so the roller is parallel with the table and the drive shafts line up. The table is 1" plywood with 1" square steel tubing frame to make it ridgid. Sandpaper is held on with hose clamps that have the tightening mechanisms at 180 degrees to each other so they are relatively balanced. The springs you see keep the table under tension so it does not vibrate. Dust collection is a 4" PVC pipe with an adapter to fit our dust collection. Adjustment is via a single screw at the front which is a cut up C-Clamp . I have taken the pictures while the unit is just sitting on a garbage can cause I have the shopsmith set up to make guitar kerfing and I did not want to have to re-align it. As I said in earlier post we have used this for 6-7 years and even though we have a 3Hp General drum sander now we still use this one. BIggest drawbacks (other then being hand fed) are it only has 1-1/2" working thickness and the pillow block bearings keep going out. I should likely buy better ones. We use it for small parts and precision thicknessing. Sometimes we also pull off the cover and use the roller to shape headstocks and stuff by hand.
My apologies again for the poor pictures.
Rob McC