Thickness sanders
Posted: Sun Nov 10, 2019 11:14 pm
Just for laughs, everyone laughs when they see this sander in my shop, but hey it works. I've had 5 sanders in my time. When you do this for a living, the way it goes is you get a shop, fill it with tools, move to a bigger shop and fill that with tools, and just keep going.Eventually, if you're lucky, you get to move from more tools into better tools. But, I had to start somewhere. Those were the days when my shop was about 10' x 12' and I heated my lacquer by putting my gun in a pot of water on the wood stove. My first sander was just a drum that I turned on a Sears wood lathe. I covered it with sandpaper and had some way to push wood under it against a table. Don't remember that far back. Anyway, I built my 2nd thickness sander 35 years ago and I still would not part with it. It still has the free freight Harbor Freight motor that I bought before they figured out it cost more to ship the motor to Hawaii than the motor cost. I laminated together a maple drum that was turned roughly on a wood lathe and I used 1/2" steel for the shaft. A friend jury rigged a collar for the shaft so I could bolt the shaft ends on. Once i got my stand and table built, I trued the drum, slowly, by running a sanding board under it with 40 grit. I've used the sander that way for years. That sander had a 5" x 18" drum on it. Eventually I got a real sander, if you can call it that. It was an early day Grizzly garbage double drum sander. I did not keep it very long. But while I had it, I converted my old shop build one to a 3" x 18" drum, which was far more useful for dealing with bridges, nuts and saddles, and other small parts. Here are some photos. Looks like I have to do it in 2 postings. Pay close attention to the sophisticated electronics and digital table elevation system.