Belt Sander Sled?

[Tetsuaiga]

I was wondering about making a sled the same as those you can use with a router and wanted to see if other people think its a reasonable idea. I'm thinking I could use it as an alternative to using an expensive drum sander for fine thicknessing of thin pieces.

So instead of mounting a router you could mount a belt sander.

Can anyone see any problem with this idea? I think the hardest part would just be finding a way to mount the sander and working in a mechanism to control depth.

Thanks

 

[carlb40]

Depending on your sander model? It may already have a sanding frame attachment available for it.

 

[bodge]

If you have room it isn't actually that difficult to build a drum sander. Even I managed it with my rudimentary woodworking skills and it works a treat for thicknessing tonewood for my ukulele builds. Just a thought.

 

[Tetsuaiga]

Yes a sanding frame would make mounting it easy I imagine.

I'm definitely considering making a drum sander for myself, probably one of the bench top types. I've seen various people making them online and there seems to be plans around.

I've never made anything like that myself but it does seem quite simple and in the long term it could be great to have the knowledge to apply to future home built projects. I'm building instruments as well so hoping with a sander I can turn an hour or so job with hand planes into a few minute one.

I only hope that if I do take on the drum sanding project I wouldn't be underestimating the difficulty. The hardest part seems to be making sure everything is aligned right.

 

[bodge]

I found it a lot less involved than I thought it would be. Don't get me wrong, you do have to work as accurately as you can, but there is nothing especially difficult in the building of one. I used simple half lap joints for the frame, mounted a couple of pillow block bearings to run a 25mm steel bar "axle" through and made the drum up from 18mm chipboard discs cut from an old wardrobe and then epoxied onto the steel bar. I made a simple pulley up from two chipbiard discs, chamfered on one edge with a router and glued and screwed together and again epoxied onto the steel axle bar, which is then run by a half HP electric motor (the only expensive bit of the whole thing) and a car fan belt of the correct length from Halfords. The adjustable table is three thicknesses of melamine faced chipboard well glued and screwed to gether. I used double sided tape to fix coarse sandpaper to this adjustable table and used that to true up the drum. Then it was just a case of wiring up a switch and wrapping the drum in abrasive paper, using carpet tacks and electrical tape.
It has lasted me through three years and at least twenty ukes so far and is still going strong. Not pretty to look at and I am sure many more advanced woodworkers on here would have a fit if they saw it, but it does the job for me and was over £500 cheaper than the cheapest commercial drum sander I could find which was the Jet from Axminster.

 

[Tetsuaiga]

Nice to hear how you went about it. I'll probably get a motor from ebay, I can see some on there which are the right power for around 80-90 pounds.

So I think i'll give this a try, it might even be quite a fun project. They do seem unusually expensive machines new for what they are. Cheapest one on axminster is close to 700, I have checked on ebay for second hand ones but they don't come up too often.

 

[bodge]

I know what you mean, drum sanders are like rocking horse droppings second hand, another reason that I chose to build my own. I sourced my motor from eBay, around £70 at the time I seem to remember, the rest was really just stuff I had lying about in the garage.
Let us know how you get on. ccasion5:

 

[Tetsuaiga]

Sure if I get it done i'll post a few pics back here.

Out of interest how wide did you make yours with that horse power? The most i'd need now is 30cm wide but it might be sensible to add a bit more on for future needs.

 

[bodge]

The most I would ever need for ukulele is around 240mm, so to be safe I made it so I can just squeeze 300mm width through. The motor drives it fine, although it will grumble if I try to push something too thick through it, but I am sure that is the case with anything.
Actually I have just checked and I am telling porkies. The motor is actually 1/2 kilowatt which is 3/4 horsepower. Sorry about that!

 

[Tetsuaiga]

No problem lol, I might go for a 1hp one thats around 1400rpm. They only cost a tiny bit more.