Drills and Sanders

[Hamish]

Hi everyone, I am a new member, and fairly new to woodturning. I would like to know if it is worth buying the following, how useful would they be?
Which would be MOST useful.?
Drill press
Belt sander
Random orbital sander
Have learned a lot from this Forum already, hope some of you can advise me

 

[PowerTool]

Hello,and welcome to the forum

Personal preference of course,but I don't think there is need for any of them.
Most drilling you need to do can be done on the lathe with a Jacobs chuck in the tailstock.
A belt sander is too big and vicious for most turning.
Random orbit sander might be of use if you intend doing large,flat platters as they are normally 125mm or 150mm diameter;I use 50mm or 75mm sanding arbours with velcro-backed abrasive for most of my power sanding (in a cordless drill),sometimes use a 125mm arbour on platters/large bowls.
Remember - good toolwork is better than lots of sanding :wink:

Andrew

 

[CHJ]

Welcome to the forum Hamish, as Andrew has already commented in my opinion none are particularly useful in support of turning except perhaps the drill press, it can have its uses for drilling blanks to facilitate mounting on lathe, usual limitation with most engineering drill presses for any woodwork is the lack of reach between spindle and support collum.

If you intend getting one try for one with an extending upper beam like this, not as accurate as a good engineering drill press but more useful with wood projects.

 

[cornucopia]

:sign3: i've been turning for 11 years and never used any of the bits on your list.

 

[TEP]

Mornin' Hamish, welcome to our little bit of the web, hope you enjoy your time here.

I agree with most of the above, none are really needed for turning. Unless of course you have the space, and a spare few quid. :lol:

BUT, they can come in handy and I have both, the pillar drill and a belt sander. Each was bought during the time I was doing a bit of commission work for some small shops. (I no longer do it. ) I was asked to turn out a few hundred paper knives for 3 shops. I initially used a MDF sanding disk on the lathe to shape the blade area, but decided it was easier and quicker to buy a belt sander. Put the purchase price in with their cost and ended up with a sander.

The pillar drill was a similar aquisition to speed up repetition work.

 

[Bodrighy]

I haven't got any of these either. If you intend to do flat work I guess they would be useful but for 'proper woodwork' :lol: :twisted: they are probably unnecessary.

Better spending the money on tools etc

Pete

 

[Hans]

Hi Hamish,

welcome to the forum. Of course you don't need these tools, but once you have a good lathe and tools, a bandsaw and drill press are very useful. I looked at the type of radial drill press that Chas mentioned, but decided on a good machine with the biggest throat (distance between spindle and column) that I could afford.

Hans

 

[davegw]

Hi everyone, I am a new member, and fairly new to woodturning. I would like to know if it is worth buying the following, how useful would they be?
Which would be MOST useful.?
Drill press
Belt sander
Random orbital sander
Have learned a lot from this Forum already, hope some of you can advise me

Hi Hamish, Can I ask a personal question? if you're fairly new to turning how can you even afford to think of tools unrelated to lathe work - not a criticism you understand, I'm just jealous.

I came to turning once I had all of the above, and can honestly say I've never used them (successfully!) in relation to turning, ask me one day about the time I used the belt sander on a piece on the lathe!

IMHO the key to good turning is the finishing, so I make sure I have all the kit I need to keep my tools sharp, my bench space clean, and provide plenty of other finishing aids.

Glad to welcome you to the fray - Enjoy and keep us posted with what you achieve!

 

[Wanlock Dod]

The only tool I'd really recommend is a bandsaw, although I have used my drill press a couple of times for turning related stuff. This has generally resulted in throat related issues as mentioned above, or at least it did the last time. I used it to drill holes in the seat of a rubbish stool I made, and it worked pretty well for that once I'd got the wood the right way around

Save your cash for consumables like abrasives and finishes, unless you don't already have a bench grinder.

Cheers,

Dod

 

[Wanlock Dod]

I've just remebered that there is one tool I forgot to mention, although I only really use it in the processing of logs prior to turning, and most often to get them into a form which I can then bandsaw.

I use my super cheap power hand planer quite a bit to make flatish faces on stuff and find it really effective.

Another forum member recommended removal of the bark but frankly I don't bother, these tools have quite hardwearing blades which are double sided and cheap.

If you collect much of your wood as logs etc., rather than as blanks then I'd rate it as a useful tool.

Dod

 

[Hamish]

Thank you all very much, for your advise. I will not make any more purchases just yet