# Thickness sander



## Bob Willing (Jul 4, 2008)

I have finished my thickness sander and you can view additional pictures in my album under thickness sander. The dust collector hood is made from a 6" PVC drain pipe and the drum is made from a 4" sch40 PVC pipe. There is a 2 1/2 inch wide plug on both ends as well as a 2 1/2 wide plug in the middle inside the drum. The only draw back with this system is the weight of the unit while taking it off of the table saw when not in use.The belt is easy to adjust with the saw blade height adjuster. The photo does not show the belt attached to the saw blade shaft with a 2" pully.


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## Kenbo (Sep 16, 2008)

That is really awesome. Really spectacular. How does it work. Are you happy with it? Kind of wish I had seen some progress pictures on the build of this one. Great stuff.


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## Pirate (Jul 23, 2009)

Good job! Do you have any pictures, and details of the conveyor drive?


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## Bob Willing (Jul 4, 2008)

Pirate said:


> Good job! Do you have any pictures, and details of the conveyor drive?



If you click on my photos you will see that the conveyor is hand cranked, the photo in the top right shows the hand crank. The rollers were made from 1 1/2" pvc and the roller that is attached to the hand crank was wrapped with friction tape. In the bottom row of my photo album you will see the conveyor supports.

If you go to my photos and click on Thickness sander album and click on the first pic than step through the remainder each has a caption below the pic. Also if you double click on the photo in the post it will take you the all of he photos, in the upper right corner click next and step through the photos.


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## Bob Willing (Jul 4, 2008)

Kenbo said:


> That is really awesome. Really spectacular. How does it work. Are you happy with it? Kind of wish I had seen some progress pictures on the build of this one. Great stuff.



Thanks Kenbo I would have like to taken progress pics but my camera is on it's last leg. I am back to making gun racks so I will report on performance very soon.


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## Gerry KIERNAN (Apr 20, 2007)

That looks like a great little sander. I am wanting to build one as well. For a conveyor belt I have some old treadmills. I was thinking of running the belt with the existing motor. I have a heavy wall 4 inch piece of aluminum tubing for my drum. How is your sanding belt attched to your drum? I haven't worked out the frame details yet, but your project gives me some ideas. I am thinking of mounting the drive motor for the drum on top of the drum, and working out a mechanism to raise and lower the drum and drive to have a thickness adjuster.

Gerry


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## Bob Willing (Jul 4, 2008)

Gerry

If you go to my personal profile and look up my album called “thickness sander” the fourth picture from the left is a pic of the notch that holds the sandpaper. I cut a notch in a piece of ¾” oak after it was turned down to match the OD of the sanding drum. At the bottom of the notch is a threaded insert (1/4 X 20) the sandpaper retainer wedge is the piece I cut out to form the notch. I drilled a hole and counter sunk it to accept a ¼ X 20 screw that screws into the threaded insert. The wedge when tighten holds the paper in place. 

The sanding drum is made from a piece of 4” PVC schedule 40. The OD is 4” and the ID is 4.5”. I made two end caps from 2 ½” thick woods. I turned them on my lathe so that they had a ¼ shoulders or flange on one end to keep them from going all the way into the PVC pipe. I made one plug to fit into the center of the pipe to increase its rigidity. They were drilled to accept a ¾” rod. I assembled the center plug and the two end capes into the drum and held them in place with screws.

I drilled two ¼” holes to accept ¼” roll pins next to each of the end caps into the ¾” rod. 

The ¾” oak disks that have the notches to retain the sandpaper as mentioned above also have a notch cut in them to match the ¼” roll pins. These two disks are screwed on to the end caps and keep the drum from turning on the ¾” shaft. 

Picture #1 Lower row shows the lifting mechanism. Pictures # 1 & 2 top row show the elevation knobs for different range of wood thicknesses. The lifting mechanism therefore is used to make adjustments with a given range of an elevation position. In another words the lifting adjustment is not meant to accommodate the full range of the thickness sander without using the elevation knobs.

If you are going to make your drum out of aluminum you may need to make everything out of aluminum. Even though I used wood and PVC everything will not end up perfectly round and on center. The PVC pipe as purchased is slightly oval shaped. I used a piece of 3/4“ plywood with 50 grit sandpaper glued to it and passed under the sanding drum followed by 80 grit sandpaper to true up the drum.


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## Gerry KIERNAN (Apr 20, 2007)

Thank you for the input Bob. The pictures are excellent. I was thinking of using velcro backed abrasive material and attaching velcro to the drum, but your method would certainly be less expensive for the materials. For the drum I am considering trimming down two aluminum pulleys and welding or screwing them into the drum. That would also give me a method of attaching the shaft. I will have to put some thought into attaching the sandpaper with your keyway method. I think once I get the drum worked out the rest should be fairly straight forward, as the treadmill already has the drive, framework, and guides. It also has speed control, so with the right pulley combination I should be able to get the speed down to a useable rate. 

Gerry


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## Gerry KIERNAN (Apr 20, 2007)

Hi again Bob

Looking at your pictures, it appears that the sandpaper strip is secured at each end by the keys you made. Does the key extend only the width of the paper? Do you then wrap the sandpaper around the drum in a spiral and then secure the other end with the second key? How well does this stand up? Any problems with the paper tearing out at the middle? If this is working well, I think I can adapt your method to my drum by making wooden plugs, as you did, and securing them into the drum with screws, and epoxy. I could then attach a pulley at the drive end of the drum by screwing through it and into the wooden plug. The shaft would go right through the drum and be placed between the two bearing blocks. How does this sound to you? Alternately, I could epoxy the shaft into the plugs, mount the shaft between the bearing blocks, and the secure the pulley to one end of the shaft.This would probably be more practical, as it would allow me to change the drive pulleys and belt more easily.

Gerry


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## Bob Willing (Jul 4, 2008)

Gerry KIERNAN said:


> Hi again Bob
> 
> Looking at your pictures, it appears that the sandpaper strip is secured at each end by the keys you made. Does the key extend only the width of the paper? Do you then wrap the sandpaper around the drum in a spiral and then secure the other end with the second key?
> 
> ...


 
Hope this helps!


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## Gerry KIERNAN (Apr 20, 2007)

Bob Willing said:


> Hope this helps!


Very much Bob. Thanks again. I can pretty well picture the drum assembly in my mind now, and for me that is the first big step.:thumbsup:

Gerry


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## Visions (Jun 16, 2011)

WOW, you are the man! :thumbsup:
Very impressive rig! How wide of material can it handle? How flat is the stock after being run through?

Looks to be a very nicely engineered machine, you did very, very well with that.

Just a thought, but if you are good at drafting, you could likely sell plans for that and have a good number of takers.
I know I'd want a set!

Wayne


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## Bob Willing (Jul 4, 2008)

Visions said:


> WOW, you are the man! :thumbsup:
> Very impressive rig! How wide of material can it handle? How flat is the stock after being run through?
> 
> Looks to be a very nicely engineered machine, you did very, very well with that.
> ...


Wayne
I would like to take credit for the original design, but I bought the plans from www.plansnow.com, but I changed the design material and some parts to suite material on hand. I used plywood rather than MDF for the structure. For example the plans called for 21 MDF disks to make up the sanding drum but I used 4" PVC and the OD of PVC is 4.5" and the plans called for 5" disks. So I needed to adjust the height and location of the height setting holes to suite my needs etc. I found that I trial fit as I went along and had to adjust measurements because what was dimensioned on the dwg did not fit. This sander will sand 16" width. The dust collector called for lexan/plexiglass but I used 6" PVC pipe.


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## Bob Willing (Jul 4, 2008)

Did a little sanding today on the sander here is my experience. I sanded 7” boards 3 feet long of oak. Dust collection worked great I could see dust forming on the board and sucked up by the vacuum. Sand paper on drum stayed in place for entire job no problem. The drum runs CC and the paper is wound CW. I also did not notice any excessive heat build up on the drum. :thumbsup:

Out feed belt had a little problem tracking but readjusted and OK. One problem with crank handle feeding is if the motion is not smooth the drum sands divots in the wood. :thumbdown:I found it difficult to control the board while cranking and trying to catch the board as it exits the belt. I think I will need to put some sort of out feed table or shelf to support the board. Also bowed boards are a real pain to pass through the sander because the feed table is not forgiving. I think I will see if I can find a tread mill on CL to power the belt.

I think I am going to make a devoted stand and put a dedicated motor to run the sander. The whole thing is getting too heavy to move around at 72 my back and will just aren’t there anymore. :laughing:

Overall the sander performed as I expected, but the hand crank could be a real problem.:icon_smile:


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## Visions (Jun 16, 2011)

Just a thought, but a simple gear reduction motor to run the belt would likely be easier than using treadmill parts, as all you would need to do is replace the crank with the motor. 

If you could find one that runs on AC current, you could use something like a dimmer switch to control the speed, or even one of the add-on speed controllers that are used with a router and are sold by MLCS, Eagle America and a few others, as that would likely have finer control than just a dimmer.

Or, you could order a replacement conveyor motor for a drum sander from somewhere like Grizzly Industrial. Their 10" drum sander has a separate motor for the conveyor, though it is 24v DC and would need a transformer. But they do sell it, and the transformer, as replacement parts for their drum sander.
Here is a link to the page, with part #140 being the motor and #134 being the transformer.
http://www.grizzly.com/products/g0716/parts

Another option for a low cost gear reduction motor is an adjustable speed rotisserie motor, though I'm not positive it will have enough power or spin quite fast enough. I have used them for other things though, and they do have a good bit of torque, more than you would think. 

I guess it would depend on how much effort it took to crank the handle, and that's something that only you know. 

Good luck and thanks for sharing your project, I still love the idea of it and really wish I had one myself!

Wayne


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## Brink (Nov 22, 2010)

Making your own sander is so cool! Well done.


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## Visions (Jun 16, 2011)

Bob,
just wanted to say thanks for posting this and tell you that I too have purchased the plans and may attempt to build one myself as well.

I plan to try to do a few things differently, just to see if it will work and if it has any benefit. 
For starters, my father is a machinist and I plan to have him make me the end caps for the drum out of aluminum, as I figure he can make them far more precise than I can.
As well I have found some 2 part expanding high density foam that I plan to fill the drum with as well, hoping to add to it's rigidity some. If it's proves not to work, I'm only out a section of PVC, right?

I do think I will follow your lead and use a good quality plywood for the structure rather than MDF. I have found it more durable in other instances, and I think it will hold true here as well.

I also plan to make it a stand alone unit, as I have a 1.5hp motor that will drive the drum, although I will need to find a solution to drive the conveyor, though I do have some ideas.

Thanks again Bob, I never would have found this plan otherwise, and your posting this has given me the confidence to make my own attempt at building a drum sander. I had seen others before, but none as well designed as this.

I will likely start a thread and update on my progress if it proves to work out for me.

Wayne


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## JEC559 (Jul 1, 2009)

Nice job. I really like that. I was wondering about the heat build up and PVC for the drum. Sounds like it worked out ok from your last posts. That is soo cool.


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