Australian/New Zealand Luthiers Forum

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Das right dudes...me own 'Om built thickness sander

Cost all of $100, if that.

Couple of 4x2s
1/3 hp Motor from some where or other
2 Feet of 1 in. round steel rod ~ $20 and me son machined the ends for the
pillow blocks and V pulley me got at the local hardware store.
Had the 10 inch plate for slapping on some sand paper.
Chunks of some 1/2 inch G1S shop plywood
Screws, and a couple of bolts me find in the old screw n bold pail.
Switch, box and electrical cord from the electrical junk box and
an old plastic pail over the motor to keep the dust out.
Oh ya and about 3 days sorta fartin around, like me in a real hurry, NOT!


So me knocked out this 2x4 frame to hold the metal stuff



Then me blocked up some spruce 2x4s and glued it around the mandrel. Note the
hole in the mandrel, thats were a bolt gets insterted and imbeded in to the wood blocking
to prevent it from spinning on the mandrel shaft.







Then me made it sorta round with the old Stanley




Wired up the motor, clamped a piece of 1/2 x 1 inch fir as a tool rest and went at it
with a lathe gouge till it was round.




Slapped on the bed with a few hinges, shoved in a bold and a chunk of wood for a handle to raise and lower the bed and passed through a piece of ply with some sand paper glued to it till the drum was parallel to the bed. Ain't got the goop to hold the sand paper on the disc...gonna hasta wait till me goes into town.







Thats it dudes...is real no brainer and works like a charm. Ya one day me might score an old vacuum cleaner form the Good Rev. Jims Junk Store and build a dust cover....ya, one day but probably not. Truth is, me just gonna haul it out side in the spring, throw a tarp over it and thats where its gonna live. The hell with a dust collector. Only use the sucker a few times a year anyways.

Them there fancy shmancy thickness sanders sell fer $1,000 and up, and well thats a lotta beer to my reckoning. So dudes...now you know.


blessings
duh Padma

When you put the savings in terms of beer you got all the Aussies attention Padma.

Your's is probably the best low cost drum sander I've seen, and by far the simplest to build. Thanks so much for sharing that one with us.

Nicely done Padma. Straight up simple.

Do have one question for you though. Are you going to treat the drum with something to keep if from warping or just true it up before you use it?

Have you used it yet Padma?

Just wondering if so, how you got on with the lack of dust extraction you mentioned. It is not only for health and safety that they are recommended for these machines. The drum rotates at such speed and creates such volumes of dust, that without something "sucking" it up as it is made, it wants to throw some back down on the workpiece just prior to feeding back in. The cycle of which means that you get excessive dust build up, it clogs the paper, then burns the wood. Means a lot shorter life span on paper and is particularly bad on oily or resinous species.

Perhaps in practice though, your version is so open it does not have the same effect? I'm not sure as I've not the experience to draw from. Anyway, I hope you've got some decent filters other than your lungs for protection when that thing fires up Oh, and I'd practice how many paces from one side to the other before using it - so you know where you are in the resulting cloud to catch the wood when it comes out

Jeremy.

Well is like this,

So far me only been thicknessing banding and yes she makes sawdust and so me turn on the exhaust fan and after every 3 or 4 passes, blast 100bls of air at her...and out through the fan in the wall she goes...now as soon as the snow is melted in the drive way, me haul her outside were me only needs the 100lbs.

The unit is designed so that me feeding from me gelly gutton level, can reach over and catch the piece as it exits. Its only 17 inchs wide. Or stand on the end and feed from one side with one hand and catch on the exit side with me other hand.

The hassle to go through to make a hood and hose it up and then score some sucking machine just ain't worth the 2 or 3 plates me gonna pass through in a year.

Besides its only sawdust.


blessings
duh Padma

Jesus..another piece of machinery for that beard to get wrapped around.

J.F. Custom wrote:

Just wondering if so, how you got on with the lack of dust extraction you mentioned.

Jeremy, duh Padma has the world's best dust extraction system growing off his chin

All I have to do is make one of these and combine it with the running machine that I got from the dump underneath as a variable speed feed belt and I'm in.
What could I use instead of spruce? Spruce doesn't seem to be available around these parts.

Tonxi wrote:What could I use instead of spruce? Spruce doesn't seem to be available around these parts.

Some nice Tiger Myrtle will do it as well.
Or flamed Blackwood (I recently have read here around that it's only weed, just as spruce in BC).

Tonxi wrote:All I have to do is make one of these and combine it with the running machine that I got from the dump underneath as a variable speed feed belt and I'm in.
What could I use instead of spruce? Spruce doesn't seem to be available around these parts.

Martyn, All you need is a timber that is stable and wont move too much as it will go oval on you if it moves too much. If you laminate it up like the 'Pad has done it should be pretty good.

Show us the pics when you have made it!

Regards

John

charangohabsburg wrote:

Tonxi wrote:What could I use instead of spruce? Spruce doesn't seem to be available around these parts.

Some nice Tiger Myrtle will do it as well.
Or flamed Blackwood (I recently have read here around that it's only weed, just as spruce in BC).

Actually, in BC we call weed, weed or grass sometimes....

Maybe a bit late for some people who have used this as inspiration to build a similar machine but ...
When I built my one, I used about circles of customwood (MDF) cut on the sawbench with a jig, drilled to thread onto the shaft. The outside circles were pinned through the shaft to ensure no slippage. Circles glued together and trued to be cylindrical. Lots of polyurethane to stop water absorption and to facilitate removal of used sandpaper (contact adhesive but could get fancy with velcro). Works a treat. My hunch that customwood, being dimensionally stable, would give good results all through the year seems to have been correct. Have fun!