# My proposed sanding station



## boboswin (May 23, 2007)

I have lived long enough without a decent panel sander and have decided to modify the one in Shopnotes.

I need advice for the following obstacles:

1. The design/plan show uses the table saw for a power source.
I had hoped to make the unit stand alone.
So how much hp do you think I should need to run say 20-22" of 3" drum at 80 grit?
I'm thinking 3/4 hp may be enough?

2. Where should I hang the motor to make it the least difficult to service and keep it away from, the adjustments on the panel sander?

Heres a pic of the sander that Shopnotes built to start your creative juices.

Cheers Bob


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## North40 (Oct 17, 2007)

This is a pretty cool idea. What are they using for the drum and the bed? Are you thicknessing or just surfacing? At 80 grit I assume you are trying to remove material, not just smooth it out. I managed to stall our 2hp sander a couple of times thicknessing maple panels. You'd have to go pretty light with 3/4hp.

Oh, and could you build it so the motor was directly below the drum and bed, and then have a panel below the bed that could be removed for access?


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## Dadoo (Jun 23, 2007)

Lets see, what would "Tim the Toolman" do? If you hook it up to say a smallblock Chevy V8 you wouldn't have to worry about it bogging down, and the dust it throws out would eventually settle in another state. LOL!

Ok, punnin' aside…3/4hp should be fine but will depend on the feed rate and depth of cut (if you will). What's the tablesaw they're using have for a motor? I'd also experiment with a step-pulley config to allow speed changes. Or, just leave the transmission attached to the V8. Arr-Arr-Arrrr!


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## mot (May 8, 2007)

I'm of the "More Power," school and might suggest that 3/4 HP rated motor might make it pretty slow going. I think, if you make a custom stand, you can sling the motor underneath, in-line with the drum and have it out of the way…so, instead of the motor being behind and to the left of the unit as this picture would suggest, put it so the motor is sticking under the drum with the pulley's inline, just making the cabinet deep enough to enclose the motor? I might have to get out my crayons to describe what I'm saying.


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## Dadoo (Jun 23, 2007)

Hey Bob, are there any chances of finding this plan on-line?


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## Karson (May 9, 2006)

Dadoo: The plan is in ShopNotes Tools and Jigs. I just bought it in the last week. Page 82.


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## GaryK (Jun 25, 2007)

3/4 horse might be a little small. My Performax has a 1 3/4 horse and it will bog down on wide pieces.

But that will depend on how much you are taking off at a time. I find that it takes about the same time to go slow and heavy, as it does taking lighter passes many times.

Gary


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## Gord (Sep 27, 2007)

Hi Bob,

I've sent you a number of links that I've collected on this topic, I hope they help.
This is one tool that I'd love to see built, please document what you do because as soon as you're finished, I'll be building one.

All the best
Gord


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## boboswin (May 23, 2007)

Hi Peter: the 80 grit was a worst case scenario to allow for a reasonalble feed speed with a finer grit.
I don't want to dimension the wood just level it and smooth it out.
I'm hoping to keep the motor out of the dust it possible or I may get lucky and find a sealed unit (TEAC??)

Dadoo; I counting on the feed speed to determine the rate and keep the motor at a constant to keep the cost down.
Mot: I hear you. I will have to mount the sander anyway so parking the motor under on a hinge is probably the easiest. I am thinking now that I should consider a beefier motor but how much ??
This one is going to be fun.

Gary, I have and open roller sander now and find that clean sharp paper does wonders with a few passes so I am not considering hogging wood off with this unit.

Bob


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## boboswin (May 23, 2007)

Hi Gord:
Good idea to document his project because there is quite a lot of interest in a small shop sanding device.
I hope we can all learn a bit bout the project and serve as a guide for others to tackle this one.
P.s. I wll start by checking out those links you so lindly offered.

Bob


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## WayneC (Mar 8, 2007)

Hmmm. You could mug Tom after the woodshow this weekend… I hear he may be leaving the show with a sander in hand….


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## Tikka (May 14, 2007)

Hi Bob

I am in the preocess of designing a drum sander and belt sander also based on the articles of Shop Notes.

I was going to make m ydrum sander little wider (24"), with different speed (stacked pulleys) adjustments. Both units would be free standing so plenty of space in the stand area to mount the motors. I was thinking about using 1.5 to 2 hp (TEAC) morors as there is not much difference in price. I may even run a second motor for an automatic feed instead of the hand crank.

I have priced up all the the parts and materials, the total cost for both should be just under 1000€ (US$1200), but I am going to have to wait to get some cach before I proceed.

I have only one major problem with the design, where to put them in my little shop.

Yoú need to blog this one´- I think a lot of people will be interested and would be surprised how simple it could be!

Good luck, I will follow this item with a lot of intrest


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## boboswin (May 23, 2007)

Tom, If I cancionvince him to move to my neck of the woods my festool worries could be over too.

Tony, good to hear you are interested too. 
Like you I dont see anything too difficult building this except the sizing of the motor and setting up of the sotck drive belt to it's adjustable and can be leveled.
I thought of using a reeves pulley off the motor to allow for variable speed. I will be checking on avialablity of that part from and old printing press.

Bob


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## SPalm (Oct 9, 2007)

Bob, I just sent you some links too. I also would love to build one. Good shop made machines are very possible.

I need to find that Shopnotes article….

Steve

Edit: here are the links from another forum on this subject. Very detailed.

http://www.woodworkforums.com/showthread.php?t=47750

http://www.woodworkforums.com/showthread.php?t=16936


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## Dadoo (Jun 23, 2007)

Found it advertised on www.shopnotes.com under "Tools and Jigs". The book is around $10.00. Thanks Karson!

Bob, definately blog this if you go thru with it. I would design the motor to lie underneath, which would lower the center of gravity a bit and help stabilize the unit. I would also tend to adopt a pulley/tension device like what you find on drill presses. K.I.S.S. Right?


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## North40 (Oct 17, 2007)

I think you might be making things harder than necessary by trying to do variable speed on the sanding drum. The speed at which the drum is contacting the wood is a combination of drum speed and feed rate. If your drum is turning at 1440 rpm (for instance) and your feedrate is 16 fpm, you are running 70 feet of sandpaper over 1 foot of material. If you bring the feedrate down to 8 fpm, you are running 140 feet of sandpaper over a foot of material. (Justification: 2(pi)r=9.42", 9.42*rpm=13565"/min, 13565/12=1130fpm, 1130/feedrate=f/f). It seems like the speed at which you crank the handle (or run the feed motor if you upgrade) would give you a lot of adjustment. I don't know of any production sander that uses variable speed on the drum (except Woodmaster, and that's because it's primarily a planer/moudler. And I think their machines that are strictly drum sanders only have variable speed on the feedrate, not the drum).

Oh, wanted to add one thing … the 2hp machine that I bogged down on maple was a dual drum sander. Twice as many drums means twice as much drag (theoretically). So 1hp might be good for a single drum sander, and 3/4hp could get you by if you took it easy.


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## Karson (May 9, 2006)

I have the Ryobi 16/32" sander (like the Performax). I've used some 60 grit paper before Zircona paper and they call it planing paper because it does take off a fair amount of wood. It would be used for rough sawn lumner to get it flat. It does leave a deep scratch pattern though.

A note on sanding drums machines. They seem to leave a long straight scratch pattern and they are quite noticable. So it does take some ROS sanding to get rid of them. Even 220 grit is noticable. Also cherry wood at times gets a stuck piece on the paper and then you get a burn stripe down the wood. take them shallow as you get to the thickness you want.

But they are a handy machine. I used mine a lot more before I got the carbide tooth spiral planer.

Short wood that shouldn't go through a planer will go fine in a sander. make sure it is hitting a pressure roller and the sanding drum.


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## Dadoo (Jun 23, 2007)

Shopnotes #96 (the newest issue) has plans for an upright disc sander. It has variable speeds and is powered by a 1/2 hp motor.


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## boboswin (May 23, 2007)

Dadoo the website offers a downloadable plan for it with a cutting diagram.
I built that one about a year ago without the aid of a plan It was real fiddly figuring out all the cuts to make this simple thing workable. I strongly recommend using a plan if you want to save time.

p.s. I use it more than I thought I would.

Cheers Bob


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## Karson (May 9, 2006)

Bob #2 have you figured out a dust collection point with your disk sander. Mine doesn't collect much dust and I keep wanting to do it outside because of the mess.


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## boboswin (May 23, 2007)

Peter good thoughts on the feed thing. I obviously had not given enough thougt to the feet per second/minute part of the process. I do have a small fractional motor assembly rescued from a print dryer than I can rig on the feed roller. I am going over to my favorite surplus store thei week to decide on a motor . Last time I was there they had some 1 hp enclosed units at decent prices. I have found that the worst error my customer make with abrasives it trying to skip grits to get to the final result.
I say that because many folks still regard the drum sander as a means of reducing thickness. -Not

Karson, I helped Mot load up a Performax 1632 yesterday and I now have buyers envy but the builder in me just want to build one for the pure joy of it.

Bob


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## Karson (May 9, 2006)

Bob. I cut about 50 - 60 Toaster tong handles a few days ago and i'm out to sand them with my sander. They are nice to use and easy. At least the power feed ones.


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## boboswin (May 23, 2007)

*Hello Martin. How does this happen without typing anything? 
All I did is edit the reply above and run spell check on it???*

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Peter good thoughts on the feed thing. I obviously had not given enough thought to the feet per second/minute part of the process. I do have a small fractional motor assembly rescued from a print dryer than I can rig on the feed roller. I am going over to my favorite surplus store this week to decide on a motor . Last time I was there they had some 1 hp enclosed units at decent prices. I have found that the worst error my customer make with abrasives it trying to skip grits to get to the final result.
I say that because many folks still regard the drum sander as a means of reducing thickness. -Not

Karson, I helped Mot load up a Performax 1632 yesterday and I now have buyers envy but the builder in me just want to build one for the pure joy of it.

Bob


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## WayneC (Mar 8, 2007)

I had a couple of PMs with Mot last night. Sounds like you guys had a great trip to the show. He has already been running wood through the sander.


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## boboswin (May 23, 2007)

Mot is a great guy to go shopping with. (- the Energizer Bunny could take lessons from this guy!)
I have no idea how he got the 1632 down the stairs at home other than shear adreniline.
The thing weighs in about the same as a 283 motor block.
We had an excellent outing and dragged some important booty back in the truck.
More on that as the day progresses.

Bob


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## WayneC (Mar 8, 2007)

Looking forward to seeing what you guys experienced. Should be interesting.


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## mot (May 8, 2007)

I'm sure Bob will build it strong enough to step….er, stand on. More on that later as well.


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## Tangle (Jul 21, 2007)

OK, we're waiting to hear about the trip.


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## boboswin (May 23, 2007)

Thomas, It's kind of like the old "Irish Spring" soap commercial

*"strong enough for a man but built for a woman"*
Rule of thumb - Learn to Speak English!
If you want someone to* stand* on something say stand on it.
If you want someone to *step* on something ( as in bugs) - watch out.

My Motto is:
*If you can only speak one language - speak it Good! *<vbg>

I'm holding off here because I know Mot is going to give you all the highlights later.

Bob (AKA -bigfoot)


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