Thicknessing drum sander - shop made

Looks great Yorkie. Didn’t know you were looking to make so quiclkly.

How is it hand feeding it?

-- Gary, East TX -- The longest journey begins with a single step.

Far far easier than I’d feared Gary. I thought there’d be loads of ‘kick back’, but at 1/6th turn of the adjuster at a time it’s a very gentle animal. The dust collector is a must as I found when I forgot to switch it on!

-- Res severa verum gaudium - True pleasure is a serious business.

Who cares whether its a work of art Stew, as long as it does the job. Thanks for sharing.

-- Grumpy - "Always look on the bright side of life"- Monty Python

Looks great, I’ve eyed the same thing for a while now…

-- I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it. - Pablo Picasso

Stew, nice job.
You beat me to it by a country mile and it really looks fine.

What is you RPM?

Bob

-- A mind, like a home, is furnished by its owner

Motor runs at 2870 rpm and it’s ‘geared’ down to around 1700rpm. Drum is 5” dia. As far as I know, that’s in line with Grizzly, Performax etc.

-- Res severa verum gaudium - True pleasure is a serious business.

Great Job Stewart. Looks like a keeper.

-- Karson Southern Delaware karson_morrison@bigfoot.com

Form and functionality, what more can you ask for?

-- Grant...."GO BUCKEYES"

Very nice job, looks very professional.

-- Tom D

Stew, nice job. How thin will it go?

Tom

-- Anybody can become a woodworker, but only a Craftsman can hide his mistakes.

Great piece of craftsmanship Stew.

I’ll bet others will be trying to duplicate this.

-- Dick Cain, Hibbing, MN. http://www.woodcarvingillustrated.com/gallery/member.php?uid=3627&protype=1

really cool. I hope you gets lots of years of satisfaction from it.

-- making sawdust....

Stewart, I cant tell you how happy I am with this post. I have been agonizing about a thickness sander for so long now. I have been on the fence about putting the time into building one, wondering if it would be as good as a commercial version and whether it would just frustrate me. I just spent some considerable time with your links and I will be going back. I will definitely be talking to you more about this. I think you just pushed me over the edge to make one!!! Thanks so much.

-- Dust collectors suck.

It looks like functional art to me. Like most others here, I have been toying with the idea of building one but was not sure if it really would save all that much money, especially if it didn’t work well when I was done :)

Great post, thanks

-- "so much to learn and so little time"..

Good job. I love shop made machines. I tried one of these years ago using my lathe. But I didn’t put the love into it that you seem to have done. I will be interested in how you like it over time with the manual feed.

Love your knobs!

-- Stevethepeeve -- I'm no rocket surgeon

Many thanks gentlejocks for your comments. I’d put in a lot of thought whether or not of some sort of feed arrangement would be necessary. Up to now, my limited experience with it suggests that I’m better off without that complication.

Tom Adamski – The rise and fall adjuster will take it down to zero, but I’ve yet to try it below 1/4 inch. The main reason for building it was for final thicknessing of acoustic guitar components. Hence the fairly generous width of 18”. So I’m hoping it’ll maintain its accuracy over that width and down to something like 1/8”.

I’m so pleased to be of some help Blake. Bringing those links together took some doing, but should be a useful aid. Of course I’ll be happy to talk about any aspects of the project.

Steve – Yes the knobs! Cheap and cheerful eh? Bandsawn mdf circles ‘decorated’ by Forstner bit and Araldited to a 1/4” / 6mm hex bolt.

And shhh! don’t tell anyone, but the dust collector outlet is a plastic plumbing component; actually a lavatory soil pipe union. Perfect snug fit for my vacuum hose. And what you see on it is sawdust!

-- Res severa verum gaudium - True pleasure is a serious business.

I think it is up to your usual standard of excellence. You say yours is quiet. I have a performax, and with it and the DC running it really howls. Good work Sir.

-- Maplewood, MN

I was in Austria last week, whilst there I was looking back through my “Shop Notes” Magazines and I have started to modify there design for the thickness sander, to take panels up to 26” – not too sure how it will work out, but time will tell! Thanks for ALL the links, I am sure they will help.

Some Questions.
1. Did you find that central height adjustment was sufficient to maintain stability at the edges of the platern?
2. Is that Velcro you are using on the drum to hold the sandpapaer on?
3. What size was the motor you are using? I was thinking about a 2HP
4. What was the final drum speed you came up with?

Any comments would be appeciated

-- Tony - All things are possible, just some things are more difficult than others! - SKYPE: Heron2005 (http://www.poydatjatuolit.fi)

Tony – Thanks for your interest.

1. It’s ‘early days’ & I haven’t had the opportunity to use it very much yet. However the arrangement does seem rigid enough. I used top quality heavy brass hinges (the sort with washers incorporated on the wearing surfaces) to pivot the platten on. They have no play at all that I can discern. That, plus I’m careful to sand off the bare minimum at each run. 1/6th turn (0.008”) is enough. Also, I went for a 1” diameter spindle throught the drum for rigidity.

2. Yes, I trued up the built-up 5” dia. MDF drum as recommended in Dominic’s website, sealed it with PVA and applied self-adhesive hook 100mm wide Velcro obtained from here .

3. It’s 1.5 hp motor, bought from eBay brand new.

4. Theoretical drum speed is around 1700 rpm. But, as you can see in picture #4, the belt is riding too high in the motor pulley, so it will be a little less than that. It was the only pulley I had in my junk box and it’s really too narrow, but seems to work O.K.

-- Res severa verum gaudium - True pleasure is a serious business.

wow thats so cool. i’ve also latly been looking into a drum sander because there is now way that i can afford a big one. any advice. things you would do again or do differently?

Thanks TWW.

I made it as a unit that would fix onto a folding workbench (Workmate) in the belief that I could store it away more easily in my cramped ‘shop. However, the thing is so heavy that I wish I’d made it floor standing. Up to now I’ve used it at floor level! That’s something I can, of course, modify in the future. I also need to rig up a safety guard over that belt drive.

As it’s been otherwise a success, I should have perhaps used some decent hardwood for the frame, rather than the leftover pine pieces I had kicking around.

-- Res severa verum gaudium - True pleasure is a serious business.

where did you get your final plans from? just from one site or a combination of all the sites?

It’s probably 95% from what I’ve called Dominic’s Woodshop TWW. He gives a very comprehensive set of instructional pictures.

-- Res severa verum gaudium - True pleasure is a serious business.

This was my very first thickness sander:

http://www.vanda-layindustries.com/html/the_hog_sander.html

Only 3” wide but I only used it for building my model ship.
It worked great.

-- Gary, East TX -- The longest journey begins with a single step.

That’s neat Gary.

-- Res severa verum gaudium - True pleasure is a serious business.

I think it looks great. I also think that you did a great job on it. It is so much fun to make your own tool and see it work. I really like mine. I am going to make mine so it is self feeding. I am happy to see that you built one. Great job.

-- Davesfunwoodworking

Thanks Dave. Yes, It was quite a thrill to pass that first piece of wood through & see it working. I really should have credited yours as it was one of the things that set me thinking about making one. I’ll be interested in seeing how you deal with the self feeder.

-- Res severa verum gaudium - True pleasure is a serious business.

Stewart you are an amazing craftsman. I have seen these plans several times and opted for the Performax 16-32. I’m happy with it, but I didn’t build it myself :((

-- Bill - "Suit yourself and let the rest be pleased." http://www.cajunpen.com/

That’s look like a pretty nifty unit, Stewart! I’ve been thinking about building one. I’m curious as to what you used to stick the black velcro (I’m assuming that’s what it is) on the drum. Also, is it a problem to manually push the material through? I’ve seen some with a manual handle feed and others with an automatic feed. I’m not sure the benefit of building an automatic feed is worth it.

By the way, check out my website at www.woodshopics.com. I have a cool hand tool storage rack that you can easily build. It can be adapted to any wall space. Take a look at the router table that I built, also.

-- Dave, Golf...Woodworking...more Golf, www.woodshopics.com

Thanks for your interest Dave. Yes, I used black velcro (hook). It’s 4” wide self adhesive. My UK supplier is here . I trued up the drum as described on this page, then applied one or two coats of pva glue, lightly sanded it, removed dust with a tackrag and then carefully attached the Velcro. It seems to have adhered very well.

I haven’t found manual feeding to be a problem. It seems quite easy to push through at a constant speed. Like you, I felt that building an automatic feed seemed an unnecessary complication .

-- Res severa verum gaudium - True pleasure is a serious business.

Great job Stewart. I was lucky enough to be given a 10” wide drum sander by a friend who was moving to a much wider machine. Regarding a power driven feed unit – I have one with variable speed which comes in useful when I want to reduce the dwell time under the sandpaper – e.g. the rosewoods tend to burn so I feed them through faster and it works (to a degree, and providing I frequently clean the sandpaper). Of course there’s nothing to stop you handfeeding fast or slow, but I think I would be concerned about holding to a constant speed if it were me doing the feeding. Just offer this as ‘food for thought’.

Thanks Mr. Stewart for all the links that will be a big help when building mine. Mike

-- Mike. Profisher50@yahoo.com

To think I could have saved $1000 US by building my own instead of buying this lousy Delta 18/36 that I am stuck with…..The way it(Delta) is constructed , you would think that somebody made it at home out of salvaged parts anyway…..ie: Large cast iron hand wheel turning a 1/4” shaft connected to plastic gears to turn a cogged belt that turns four posts to raise and lower a cast iron feed bed that for the life of me and several attempts later , still does not sand evenly across the width of the drum….need I say more ???

-- Dusty56@comcast.net

Missed this the first time around. Woohoo. I’ve wanted to try this and have a couple of the resources. The more the merrier. I’m thinking that this is much more doable now. Thanks.

-- Jeff, South Carolina

Good luck with that Jeff. Please ask if you need any more informatiion.

-- Res severa verum gaudium - True pleasure is a serious business.