DIY Thickness Sander with Aspire

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zeeway
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DIY Thickness Sander with Aspire

Post by zeeway »

After seeing several 18 inch wide DIY thickness sanders on the web, I decided that would be a good use for a motor and a plywood box I had sitting around. This sander uses a 5 inch drum made of mdf and covered with Velcro matting and mating sandpaper. So the first step was to use Aspire and my CNC to cut 26 mdf discs to glue onto a one inch shaft. I also used Aspire to design the dados; and the hole on the top of the dust hood for the shop vac connection; and the elevation and lock wheels. Also used Aspire to bore my motor pulley to 20mm at .010 inches at a pass – that was exciting, but it worked. Of course, I could not just stop there, so I added some cherry accents and a little v-carving…should make the sander run better, right? :o
IMG_3313.JPG
This shows the dust hood in place:
IMG_3321.JPG
Angie

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Re: DIY Thickness Sander with Aspire

Post by mtylerfl »

That's pretty cool, Angie!
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Re: DIY Thickness Sander with Aspire

Post by MarkJohnston »

Very inventive Angie, looks good.

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Re: DIY Thickness Sander with Aspire

Post by twiztedfingerz »

What were your concerns reguarding the size of drum/torque/motor size?? Beautiful work on tooling and machinery -- you must take your time on your "work work", huh!?
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zeeway
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Re: DIY Thickness Sander with Aspire

Post by zeeway »

Thanks, guys.

Jess - my motor is a 3450 rpm, 2 hp...supposed to be 2hp...but maybe its really 1-1/2 hp...because it runs from 110v. But 1-1/2 hp is bigger than most drum sanders use, so there would be plenty of torque. My main technical concern was to get the correct surface speed for the sanding drum. The Grizzly site says their drum sander runs at about 2200 surface feet per minute, but all the diy plans looked like they ran at half of that - and most of the diy plans used 1825 rpm motors. So I used a 2.5 inch nominal pitch diameter pulley on the motor and a 5 inch nominal pitch diameter pulley on the drum shaft...so with a 5 inch sanding drum, I should be getting maybe 2300 surface feet per minute. But I did stand back when I first turned on this thing. And I am pleased to report it works well.

Angie

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Re: DIY Thickness Sander with Aspire

Post by glenn »

Angie,
Great job! Thanks for sharing a wonderful idea!
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Re: DIY Thickness Sander with Aspire

Post by Norb »

Angie, with this type of drum sander you might get superior results by adjusting the drum/table so it's close to but NOT touching the workpiece while switched off.

At the speed you indicate the sandpaper will lift slightly off the drum which will make for a nicer and cooler sanding job. No burn marks.
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Re: DIY Thickness Sander with Aspire

Post by esteeme1 »

Sweet job Angie and I really like the detail work.
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zeeway
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Re: DIY Thickness Sander with Aspire

Post by zeeway »

Thanks, everyone. If you are interested in pursuing this on your own, here are the two sites that provided most of the information:

http://woodgears.ca/sander/plans/index.html

http://eberhardt.bz/GME_Wood_Land/GME_W ... Sander.pdf



Angie

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Re: DIY Thickness Sander with Aspire

Post by Ms Wolffie »

Wow, that second one brought back memories.
Straight out of one of my old woodworking magazines "Shopnotes".
I remember starting to make that one, it became a UFO.
Too difficult to make with the machines I had then :oops:
Have I REALLY bought those mags since 2005?
I must have spent a fortune by now :mrgreen:
Yours looks heaps better though.
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Wolffie
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kak
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Re: DIY Thickness Sander with Aspire

Post by kak »

I don´t understand this. What is slowing the workpiece down, so the drum doesn´t shoot the wood like a baseball machine?

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Re: DIY Thickness Sander with Aspire

Post by Ms Wolffie »

When I started my UFO, I had a motor and gearbox with different size pulleys from an old drill press, that was what I was going to use.
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Wolffie
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zeeway
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Re: DIY Thickness Sander with Aspire

Post by zeeway »

Regarding the possible similarity to a baseball throwing machine...I was a little worried about that also - but, with care it seems to be okay.

Before operating the sander, you place your workpiece between the drum and the platen which is immediately underneath the drum. You turn the elevation wheel until the workpiece just touches the drum, and then backup the workpiece so that it is clear of the drum. Then you turn the adjustment wheel to raise the platen about 10 thousandths of an inch - which is one graduation on the wheel. Then you tighten the upper lock wheel to lock your elevation wheel in place. You turn on the machine which causes the drum to rotate so that the bottom of the drum is coming toward the front of the machine. You then hand feed the workpiece from the front to the back sliding it along the platen. The dust hood helps keep your fingers away from the rotating drum.

Obviously you can't use this for smallish parts, unless you make some kind of carrier for them.

To be safe, I do stand to the side, to make sure I am not in the way of any flying missiles, baseballs, etc...but so far so good. :o

Angie

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Re: DIY Thickness Sander with Aspire

Post by kak »

Thanks for explanation.
Maybe you should build some kind of a "guard" like Matthias did here, time 6:04

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zeeway
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Re: DIY Thickness Sander with Aspire

Post by zeeway »

kak,

thanks for that video link. I enjoyed watching that build. Hmmm, maybe a jointer, next...

Angie

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