Thread: Another home made drum sander....

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.

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 .

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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

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.

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 .

Reg

Great Work Redgy!

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.

Originally Posted by MurrayD99

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

Originally Posted by Redgy

No I’m not going to paint it

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

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


Peter.

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

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

Good on ya Redgy!

What mechanism did you settle on for height adjustment?

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...

Originally Posted by 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 .

Reg

Originally Posted by 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...

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.

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: 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

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

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