Are these things worth the price of admission?
I’ve been bitten by the vacuum frame laminating bug. To the point that I’m gonna make cabinet doors for (at least) the bathroom vanity I built. (can’t find decent veneer plywood at a decent price). I anticipate the maximum width I’d be working with to be 24-26″ thus I’d probably want to look at the 18″ capacity models (correct me if that’s wrong). Can one expect to get a decently flat panel from a cantilevered drum sander?
Replies
Yes you can if you adjust it properly.
I have a Performax 22/44 that started as the original radial arm saw attachment. Then added the power feed and finally the moter and stand. I understand that they are now available in all in one units and look similar to the small ones that you are thinking about.
If all you want it for is to improve plywood then why not use the dreaded MDF? It's flatter than plywood, easy to find, and more stable. It's just ugly to work with however. (Guess you can tell that I avoid it in my basement shop.) If you are willing to track down a supplier of Baltic/Finnish Birch plywood I think you'll find that to your liking. Another good plywood is the marine stuff imported from Europe of African Mahogany, very nice to work with, but expensive. If your looking to the sander for other uses too, and this is the justification to put you over the top, then go for it. You can buy an awful lot of high quality plywood for the money though.
QC -Thanks for the reply.The reason I got interested in a machine such as this is I've started doing flat panel veneering in order to make some cabinet doors to my liking. Can't find decent hardwood veneer plywood that's (1) got a decent veneer thickness that's (2) affordable because (3) being retired I have time at my disposal to make it what I want. Soooooo ....I joint the face of my timber which is 6-8" wide, saw off a piece of veneer 1/8 - 3/32 thick, joint the timber again, saw a veneer, so on and so forth. Now I've got several pieces of veneer with one finished side, the other with bandsaw marks. I've put a few of these through my benchtop planer (Dewalt) on a sled to raise the bed sufficiently to allow planing something this thin. There's a high pucker factor associated with planing stuff this thin as you probably know. About a 10-15% failure rate if I'm not extra special careful.Other option I used with some narrower pieces was to glue them up to the substrate - yes, MDF in this case - then run them through the planer. Better results, of course, but now I'm limited to the 13" or so width of the planer.I think when all the cows come home what I'll end up doing is renting some time on a large commercial machine down at Skagit Millwork here in Mt. Vernon. Curiosity about these open ended sanders got the best of me, though.
Now I understand what you're asking. In that case, I wouldn't recommend a little Sander. I do however have a suggestion if you have a lathe.A long long time ago, Fine Woodworking (issue 16, page 83) had a small article or a tip on someone that had made a thickness sander by turning a drum, (I think it was about five or 6 inches in diameter), to wrap the sandpaper around. He then had a sheet of plywood under the drum, that was hinged on one edge, the length of the lathe. Raising and lowering the plywood under the drum gave him the thickness control when the material was pushed under it, against the rotation of the drum of coarse. It's a low-tech/low-cost system that would allow you to make a sander up to three or more feet long. The limitation would be the power of the lathe. The advantage would be that you could have a drum turned for each grade of sandpaper that you use. I think you might also want to rig up the dust collection hood for it too.
QC -That's quite a concept using the lathe as a thickness sander! I have a 3hp Powermatic that should be capable of handling that chore.But first I'll open another avenue of inquiry.....In the latest Grizzly catalog they list a small 12" benchtop thickness sander, closed variety. I'm thinking that in order to simply sand out the bandsaw sawmarks and to arrive at a more consistent veneer thickness, a small thickness sander like this would work fairly well. Sand the veneer to thickness before glue-up, then there'd be a lot less hand sanding to do. If all the pieces are thicknessed accurately enough, the resulting panel should be adequately flat??
To be honest with you since Grizzly tools won't sell to Canadians I don't look at what they have to offer, so I'm not familiar with their tools. Someone else will have to help you with that.With the 3 hp lathe that you have, you have more than enough power to make a thickness sander. You could even try the concept out by making a small drum that would hold a single sheet of paper wrapped around it.There is a Canadian company in central or eastern Canada that sells plans and a kit for small drum surface sander. I can't do a search while I'm writing this message or I lose everything I put into it. But I believe the name of the company is Stockroom Supply or something similar. Their primary business is selling Velcro back sandpaper. Their drum sander works on a similar principle to that of a jointer. You pass your boards over the spinning sanding drum, that is in the slot of a plywood top. I have seen it demonstrated in local woodworking show each fall, and it seems to work reasonably well. But as I have my Performax, I've never looked too close. If I remember correctly, the kit consists of a drum, bearings, some sandpaper and the plans to build. I believe it cost somewhere between $50 and $100 Canadian. You might want to check that out.
not from a delta open ended drum machine. whatever number they give it escape me right now, but mine is 2 yr old. bought it with the intention of running veenered plywood shelves through it. the 1st thing the owners manuel says, (not intended for veneered pieces). never mentioned that in all the sales lit. I have tried to tune the machine three times as per instructions. Does not, and will not sand a wide panel true. I put pencil lines all over severl test pieces of mdf, baltic birch and ply. not even good results.
now i use it to sand cabinet door rails and stiles, and other assorted narrow solid wood pieces. keep your $$ in your pocket on this machine. I would tell you to step up to a industrial machine, not open ended.
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