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About a year ago I posted a pic of my belt sander and how I used it to make a slope on my brace ends, more perfect than I could execute with a chisel.



Since the rollers on my sander are so small, the curve is kinda steep. This leaves a lot of mass on the braces, which won't move as easily with the plates near the rim, and raises the risk of them someday just popping off. Plus, it doesn't look as nice as a gentler, longer curve.

I recently picked up a couple of free electric motors. I bolted one down to my workbench, and cut out a disc out of a small piece of a 2"x10". I evened up the edges of the disc, smothered it in epoxy and glued strips of 60 grit to it. Maybe it'll have a few other uses too.

That will be handy. It will be interesting to see if it warps and gets out of round with humidity changes. Worse case is you can make another one out of plywood. Two 3/4 pieces stacked together will give you a wheel 1.5" wide. You might try 3M 77 spray adhesive to stick the sandpaper to the wheel......not sure if it would hold or not, but would make replacements easier.

Due to the way it was made, it already isn't exactly circular, but for what I'm using it for, it just spins around and sands off part of whatever I guide into it.

The piece of wood I made it out of is older than I am. if it hasn't warped yet, it probably won't now?

Hey Martin,
This is a great way to shape braces isn't it?
I have a 2" wide high speed sander with an 8" contact wheel that I use for the same thing, also putting in scallops. I have done both preshaping before glueing, and sanding after the braces are glued down, the latter being a bit more hazardous of messing something up. I find gluing in the go-bar deck more difficult if I preshape though.
Good solution there. If you have a bench grinder, you can also make the wheel and mount it the shaft, the using the tool rest, run a chisel up against it to true the wheel. Just another thought.

Kevin