Another home made drum sander....

[Redgy]

G’day all. At the Adelaide WWW show I had a look at drum sanders thinking hmm one day I’ll splurge out on one of these but the price for a decent size one put me right off. So inspired by Sturdee & Auld I decided well perhaps I should build one instead. I have access to many of the required parts working as an industrial electrician so I made a start. The overall specs are that it is 2HP & can sand to 670mm wide & 3-50mm thick although going to 150mm is about 10mins work to remount the table as it is all bolted together.
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So here’s some pics
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The shaft I scored from a buggered conveyor belt roller. It had a groove in the roller & the bearings were shot so was on the rubbish pile. It’s 27mm diameter with 20mm ends which fitted a pair of new 6204 bearings.
I cut some squares of particle board I had laying around, some 16 & some 18mm. These were cut to a bit over 150mm square, & a 1mm hole drilled in exactly the middle.
I nailed a 1mm brad into a bit of scrap ply & cut the head off it. This was set to 150mm from the blade & clamped to the table. The squares then placed over the nail & spun around to cut the circle.
The frame was made up from 70x35 pine & &#189; lapped joined with screws & glue. I made some bearing housings from some hardwood that came from the Studley/Lismore lot. Dunno what it is but it blunted a 3/8 drill bit when I bolted it up so I reckon it’ll be hard enough.
I used bi-lock pulleys on both the motor & drum shaft. No key ways to worry about & easy to adjust on the shaft for belt alignment. Loosen the bolts & it just pulls off if required, no bearing puller required.

[Redgy]

Next lot of piccys…
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Drum was glued up after drilling 27mm holes though the centres. After I drilled the holes I made a notch in the side of each hole. This would allow the glue to squeeze out onto the shaft as each piece was added. I used liquid nails to glue it up. Some 100mm locking castors were added to the frame & which lifted the whole thing to around 900mm working height.
After the glue dried & gave it a quick run. Considering I hadn’t sanded the drum round yet it wasn’t too bad for vibration.
The table was made from some scrap melamine shelf & 18mm MDF glued & screwed together. The plate is for the height adjuster screw to rub on.
The table installed.
My height adjuster arrangement. 16mm all thread through a pine block with a split in it. The wing nuts do up tight when the height is right & the all thread is then locked. I intend to remake this from hardwood at some stage. A nut is Arildited into it.

[Redgy]

Last lot of piccys….
I made up a dust extraction chute from MDF & pine with some 90mm storm water fittings to connect the hose to.
Finished at last. The sandpaper is attached with hose clamps which is great because I can adjust the balance by moving the clamp around a bit. It has virtually no vibration, no more than my contractor TS. I clad it with some 6mm MDF which stiffened the whole thing up a bit more. The dust cover sits in some notches on the top of the frame & hangs down front & back of the drum.
End view showing the belt cover & power cord storage.
All assembled. I wired up a stop/start button with a contactor (motor starter) in a box at the back. The stop button is safety type that stays in when you hit it & the start button has a light in it which comes on when the thing is plugged in. No I’m not going to paint it :D.<o></o>
All up it cost me about $100-120(wheels, water pipe fittings, few bits of MDF & a 27mm forstener bit) The rest I had or managed to find. It seems to work fairly well & I’m looking forward to my next project where I can try it in anger.

Cheers
Redgy

[Bodgy]

Thats great Redgy. I like the simplistic nature of it.

I do wonder if the single height adjuster will work, in the longer term. The table may warp out of square? I'd go for two, one either end and a beefy bit of hardwood, or steel, as a mounting plate.

Great job.

[Redgy]

Yeah I'm sort of wondering that too. I didn't want 2 leveling points as then there may be a chance of not getting both of them exactly the same level :confused:.

I think I could be making a few mods to it over the coming weeks maybe replacing a few wood bits with steel bits. The motor mount is another area I might beef up a bit, its just a bit of 1/2" ply :o.

Reg

[Wood Butcher]

Great Work Redgy!

[MurrayD99]

Nice machine Redgy. I always use a 4" belt sander to get stuff ready for finishing - but this looks soooo "one-pass-and-its-done". I'm intrigued though - wouldn't it want to tear the wood out of your hand and hurl it into space? Don't you need some kind of feed/hold device? If it's OK by you I'm going to file this as a future project. Thanks for taking the time to put the pictures up for us.

[Redgy]

I'm intrigued though - wouldn't it want to tear the wood out of your hand and hurl it into space? Don't you need some kind of feed/hold device?

The drum rotates towards you on the bottom, ie you feed against the flow of the sandpaper. Just for a laugh, (& with my car out of the shed) I fed a piece of pine through from back to front & it grabbed & launched it out the front of the shed. I intend to make some push blocks/plates for pushing the last few inches through instead of putting my fingers near 1500RPM 80grit :eek: A project for later (or maybe MKII) is a power feed of some type probably overhead.

Cheers

[Sturdee]

No I’m not going to paint it :D



What a shame, and I know a good colour scheme.:D

Looks great, I'm sure that you'll get a lot of good use from it.


Peter.

[Redgy]

Well I'm not going to paint it ORANGE :p :p Maybe a shade of blue :eek:

[Auld Bassoon]

That pile of squares turning into disks brings back some memories! :D

Good on ya Redgy!

What mechanism did you settle on for height adjustment?

[Auld Bassoon]

As you may recall, Redgy, when I made mine I ended up with four corner posts and a single central screw winder for height adjustment.

Whilst I can clamp he sanding table to each of the four posts with glorified Jubilee clips, I find that I still need to check for parallelism between the table and the drum as well as specific "depth of cut" so to speak. A tad tiresome, but it does work pretty well. I've thought about 4 spiral screws, one at each corner, and linked with chain or somesuch. I might even get around to it one day...:D

[Bodgy]

Yeah I'm sort of wondering that too. I didn't want 2 leveling points as then there may be a chance of not getting both of them exactly the same level :confused:.

I think I could be making a few mods to it over the coming weeks maybe replacing a few wood bits with steel bits. The motor mount is another area I might beef up a bit, its just a bit of 1/2" ply :o.

Reg


As you may recall, Redgy, when I made mine I ended up with four corner posts and a single central screw winder for height adjustment.

Whilst I can clamp he sanding table to each of the four posts with glorified Jubilee clips, I find that I still need to check for parallelism between the table and the drum as well as specific "depth of cut" so to speak. A tad tiresome, but it does work pretty well. I've thought about 4 spiral screws, one at each corner, and linked with chain or somesuch. I might even get around to it one day...:D

Thinking about your design, which is great in its simplicity, if you keep the hinged back and put two adjusting screws in (as previously discussed), the problem then becomes keeping the hieght constant between each raising screw.

It occurs to me that if you locked the screws together, not only would you only need one winder, but they would have to stay in unison.

Might this easily be achieved by canibalising the cogs off a couple of old push bikes, welding them on each screw and stick on a chain?

If you wanted to be real flash, you could have your winder above the table with a detachable handle.

[Redgy]

SteveB, the design is real simple mate. Table hinged at the back, single screw lifter at the front (see pic 5 second post) Nothing on the sides of the table except a strip down each side to 1. stop the workpiece going to where the hose clamps are on the drum & 2. to stiffen the table front/back.

Bodgy...:eek: :D Food for thought though. I think the MKII height adjuster might be as simple as a piece of 1" square tube along the full width of the front for the lifter to lift & see if that works. I will sort of have all 4 sides of the table rigidised (is that a word?) then. I can see this machine being something I keep modifying till it no longer resembles what I have now :D

Cheers & thanks for the comments/suggestions so far...open to more ideas on any glaring errors.

[Doughboy]

Mate I just love the ingenuity of the people on this site and Redgey you have just added to how valuable this site really is. Well done.

If it is ok I think this might go on my to do list as well...

Pete

[BobL]

Nice one Redgy! Can you tell us why you did not just use the metal roller from the conveyor belt?

[Redgy]

Bob, a few reasons...

1. too heavy, not meant to be spun at 1500rpm, more like 2-300. I did weigh the steel drum on fish scales....just over 12kg. I reckon the wooden one might be 4kg :confused:

2. the way it was setup was to spin on the shaft with the shaft being held stationary & the conveyor belt actually turning it around. I could've welded it to the shaft & stuck new bearings on the end but see #1.

3. the roller had a big gouge/dent in it (not visible in the photo) I'd say where it's been dropped from a height or thrown on a truck or something so it was basically stuffed anyway.

But mainly the weight.

Cheers
Reg

[watson]

G'day All,
First post, although I've been watching a while.
I'm 50% through with building my own drum sander, and I've been mucking about with the raising mechanism. I've tried 4 posts of threaded rod conected to a single winder, all linked by bike chain and bike cogs, however I think I'll opt for simlicity as in your design. The problem with the threaded rod is that it still gets out of "whack" by one thread width depending how you've aligned the allthread during construction.
Mine is a bit more "agricultural" than your machine....washing machine motor....100 mm stainless pipe for the drum. But you've inspired me to get on with the table and stop sniping valuable wood on the thicknesser.

Beaut stuff

watson

[Sturdee]

Mine is a bit more "agricultural" than your machine....washing machine motor....100 mm stainless pipe for the drum. But you've inspired me to get on with the table and stop sniping valuable wood on the thicknesser.

Beaut stuff

watson

The washing machine motor won't work. I first tried mine using a washing machine motor but under pressure they stop turning and burn out. See my thread on building the drum sander http://www.woodworkforums.ubeaut.com.au/showthread.php?t=16936


Peter.

[watson]

Thanks for the info Peter,
Just used what I had available..so while I'm building the table, I'll source a bigger motor.
Just the sort of experience/advice required.
Thanks again
Watson

[golden earring]

Hi!
A few monts ago, surfing in the web, I discovered the best of the best woodworking site: this one. Well, inspired by Redgy, Sturdee and Auld Basoom (good job, guys!), I decided to build a homemade drum sander, to work smart, not hard and save a lot of time. Finally, I decide to design a drum with 160 mm diameter, 1100 mm lenght. Last week I started the effective work:)