Thread: A huge drum sander

thanks robert for asking,im not sure of what the infeed/outfeed rpm is but it seems to be close,not to fast but not to slow.the gear box was one that i had gotten off of a motor that was in a chickenhouse that was used on a feed augger.the mototr that i am useing for the infeed/outfeed is a 1 hourse 1725 rpm.the 2 hourse mototr for the drums seems to be doing ok ,i put 100 grit paper on bouth drums yesterday to see how well it was going to work and did not boug it down while i was running it,i do no that dust was flying every where while i was playing with it for a while.it filled up my shop with dust in a hurry.im not sure yet if im going to use 100 grit followed by 220 grit or if i will use the same grit on both drums.i think that the next thing that i need to do is build my dust hood for it though,lol.im going to try to figure out the fpm on the infeed/outfeed rollers and use a hand tach on the drums to get the rpm,i tried to figure it but not sure of how close i am but think it is somewhere around 1100 to 1200 rpms.



thanks steve L.

Thanks for those answers steve L, it gives a lot of food for thought.

If you know the speed of the motor, you can calculate the reduction speed of the pulleys by dividing the sizes and then multiplying the result by the motor speed. I have scanned a conversion table for rpm to surface speed that you might find helpful.

Please pm me if you can't read the table, I had to reduce the quality a lot to fit it on the forum I can send you direct the full size pdf.

thanks robert,i will try to figure the speed of the motor for the drums,i did the infeed/outfeed roller the old fashion way yesterday and it came out to be 21 fpm.i try to bog the drums down just to see if it would and all i done was to score a piece of wood so i think that the motor for the drums is going to work out good since i want be trying to take a lot of wood off at one time anyway.



thanks steve

a few more pictures and the dust hood without the dust port

What can i say guys.Congratioulation for your resaults.
Very good and nice job.

Steve mate! She's a beast! (beast is a good thing! ) Well done, nice bit of engineering. May I ask if you installed the extractor fans in the windows before or after your first test run with her?

Just for comparison while you're experimenting with grits, we have a full blown wide belt sander at work with a front drum and pad sanding at the back, we run 120 grit on the front drum and a 180 grit on the pad sanding, comes out ready for lacquering! We don't have the drum on the back so I'm not sure what the finish would be like running a finer grit on the second drum.

Once again, well done looks great!!

Bazzy

thanks bazzy

i have been doing alittle modifying to the BEAST AS BAZ puts it,lol.it was to hard going from one end to the other to raise/lower the table so i built a sciccor lift for it and it works a lot better and a whole lot easier to work.still have a few bugs to work out on the table to get it the way i want it but i have the time .a few pictures of the changes.




thanks steve L.

Steve, looks wicked!!!

What are the bugs you're having? I'm guessing one of them is it's not lifting equally because of the springs you've added to the roller ends. Are you lifting the table or the drums?

I made a scissor lift for a thicknesser once and found that the anchor points have to be as solid as you can make them, and the pivots must not have any play in it whatsoever.

Top job, and keep the piccy's comin'!!

Bazzy

I would like to add my drum sander to the growing collection on display here. I am sure it will not be the low cost one at about $575 plus some on hand parts, but it still is much less than those offered at the on line stores.

It has a 3 hp farm duty motor to run the drums(exchanged for a days labor and included in the total price) and a 45 rpm right angle 220v motor( $35 off eBay)to run the conveyor. Most of the major parts, belts, bearings, pillow blocks, threaded rod, gears, chain, sheaves, bushings, 1 1/4 inch 16 gage tube were all purchased new at retail price. Some of the wood for the drum and bracing came out of my inventory.

The only changes I would make in it would be to replace the square tube holding the pillow blocks with a 1 1/4 x 1 1/2 inch angle iron, and to put bronze bushings in the adjustment rod holders in the bottom.

The only vibration is a little rattle in the cover of the fuse box I use for an on off switch.

After all adjustments were made the left side of the raising frame was about .025 of an inch lower than the right side.

The dust hood doubles also as a shield and has a 1/2 x 35 inch slit to remove the dust. Not picture is a shield for the motor side.

After trying to use set screws to hold the adjusting gears in place on the threaded rod, I drilled holes in the collars welded to the gears and used roll pins.

The conveyor runs at 10 1/2 feet per minute and the drum turns at about 1400 ft per minute. The conveyor drum turns at 16 rpm and the drum turns at 850 rpm.

I will have 120 -180 grit on the two drums to start with. Next to it is my planer so I am not wanting to do thickness planing with this new toy.

The last picture is what prompted me to make this item. The drawers bottoms of this night stand were to be made from 3/8 inch maple, but my former planer would not do the job, and hand planing is not part of my job description. I resorted to a 3 inch hand held belt sander and the work was less than desirable. So the bottoms were made from 1/4 inch maple plywood. Oh yes that is hard maple with walnut inlay and walnut handles.

steveL, that scissor lift looks the job. I wonder if the hydralic jack will be stable enough over time? maybe a scissor jack out of a car would be better?

I really have to say you've done a fantastic job, keep it up.

Robert

thank you robert ,bazzy it was lifting proublems but not due to the spring that i added to the cross arm and the table.i put them springs thier to hold the table down to the cross arms ,the table was lifting up on that end when i would jack the table up.the table was not coming up equal when i would jack it up so i added four more springs to it,on each corrner and that fixed that proublem .i have ordered some clamps to put on each corrner to hold it in place when i am sanding a board to keep it from moving side to side.i dont no of any other way at the moment to keep it from moving side to side but put some clamps on the corrner,if anyone knows a better way i am open to suggestions .now the only thing i no i need to do to it is to take it all apart ,weld it out and prime and paint it before i put the plywood sides on it ,i am going to use the space under it for storage for my disc sander i built and other things used for sanding,paper pads etc.i no that i will be glad when i am thru with this project so i can get back to building all the things that i need to be working on.

thanks steveL.

Lucian and Steve... fantastic jobs mate!! Truely inspiring!!

I bought one of the 14in drum sanders... but have had some issues getting the roller to lift in line... one side attached to lifting mechanism and other a thin guage steel stand thing the lifting side is strong and capable the other is just plain not up to it.

Ive also got an old 10in table saw gathering rust and gunk... and was wondering if I should have a whirl at making my own... the other one the roller moves up and down I think moving the table to meet the roller would be 100% better

Now a question... with having two rollers Steve do you use a harsher grade of paper on the infeed one and a finer grade on the outfeed... seems to me for anyone let alone someone with limited use of an arm that would be the go...

Again well done!!

Note Im not about to start anything until we have moved hopefully this will occur over the next month or so

thank you dingo ,that is what i plan on doing is to use 100 grit on the front drum and 220 on the rear drum.with all my playing around with it i have been useing 100 grit on the front and rear drums and realy like the results that i got from that so iam sure that i will use the 220 on the rear drum.i havent got it tore down yet to paint ,will wait till after the weekend is over before i start,anniversary this weekend so we are going to hot springs for the weekend and dont want to leave small parts laying around to get lost and also let this 100+ heat go away

.should be in the 90s next week anyhow so that want be to bad to get out in the shop and work.


thanks steve L