Sanding small thin wood

Re: Sanding small thin wood

tek

>Yes, a drum sander could sand pieces that small. You just need to make a carrier out of some scrap wood. A carrier is nothing more than a platform to put the small pieces on. A piece of �� stock with a wooden strip or cleat on top will do. The stock you are sanding goes in front of the cleat. The bed of the carrier keeps it flat and the cleat keeps it from sliding back from the roller. You can make the carrier wide enough to do several pieces at a time. I have a Performax Sander the instructions and video that come with the sander show how to do this. I haven�t sanded anything that small yet but I plan on trying it.

Tom

Re: Sanding small thin wood

Fred in NC

>Thank you, Tom !!

Re: Sanding small thin wood

tek

>Although I haven't had a chance to use my drum sander for an extended period of time, I just got it a couple of months ago. I am pretty impressed by it. I was going to buy a smaller one. But the Cleveland West Side WoodCraft Store was closing and I got a deal on the 16/32 model. It was a little more money than I planned on spending, but now I�m happy I did. The yrecomend that it be hooked up to a dust collector, 650 CFM min. Right now I�m using it for making some pine tavern shelves for a customer. I don�t like to use pine, but that�s what they want. The resin in the pine loads up the sandpaper. That could also be a problem with other woods that usually load up paper. The sanding belt cleaners (rubber blocks) don�t get it all out. The sandpaper is still sharp but gets clogged. Does anyone have a time and cost effective way of getting pine resin out of sanding media? Denatured alcohol and a toothbrush works pretty well. That is one of my necessity is the mother of ideas attempts. I use the cleaning block first.

Thanks for any Ideas

Tom

P.S.

We still have an East Side Cleveland WoodCraft Store and a Rockler Store in the area. Now I have to travel 4 times as far to get to WoodCraft.

Re: Sanding small thin wood

Barry Irby

>I use the rubber blocks on mine and I have tried wire brushes. Just regular old steel brush. It probably dulls the belt, but the belt was gummed anyway. Had not thought of solvent, HMMM? Would need to be something that would desolve the pine sap, but not loosen the glue holding the abrasive. Turpentine?

For sanding the small pieces for pen blanks, I believe I would fasten them to the "sled" with double stick tape. I would be afraid the dust collector would suck them up.

Re: Sanding small thin wood

tek

>As long, as they are longer than 2 1/2 inches and fed lengthwise. A roller or the drum should hold them down. They could get so thin and fragile they would break removing them from the tape. If they stay thick enough. to not break, that is an excellent idea. I'll probably try it. My dust collector is 650 CFM with a 30-micron dustbag. I wouldn't buy one that small again even though I only use it on one machine at a time. The canister models came out just after I bought mine. A canister model is what I would buy now. I don't have the room for a cyclone unit. When I am done with these shelves I plan on trying some segmented turning. I�ll run my rings through the sander to flatten them.

Re: Sanding small thin wood

Don Henthorn

>I have ised mineral spirits (paint thinner) and a stiff brush to clean the belts.

Thanks

tek

>Thanks Don I'll try that.

Re: Sanding small thin wood

Barry Irby

>You are probably right about the double stick tape, but I would be concerned with very thin pieces that they would squirm or curl up and being thin would rise above the pusher block on the sled. If the sled were slick, they would shoot out the infeed side or get sucked up.

I bought my Performax used. It had slick spots on the belt and occasionally small pieces would slip. I finally figured out that the guy before me had sanded stuff so thin that he had sand the drive belt too. Don't do that. The new belst was about fifty bucks and something of a pain to install.

The drive belt is basically a big sanding belt. Maybe it would work well if you made the sled with a piece of similar sandpaper glued to it for friction.

Barry Irby

Re: Sanding small thin wood

TheHeretic

>for small pieces needed to do pen blanks I use a piece of double stick tape to adhere it to another piece of board (oak in my case as thats whats excess in my shop) and than use my benchtop belt sander. I do the same thing you describe in terms of cutting things thin on bandsaw and than gluing up blanks. There is usually not much of a problem doing it this way. Just dont leave piece in contact with belt for long periods of time. I found that the heat would melt the tape. So now I do it in stages with about 10-15 seconds between runnings on the belt.

Dean

Columbus OH