Home made drum sander

Due mainly to the fact that I absolutely hate sanding I decided I'd build myself a drum sander.

It has a 2hp motor, 500mm x 125mm dia drum and is similar in design to several others I found on the web.

The dust extraction works very well via a 100mm port on top.

I had an idler pulley off my old Hyundai car's A/C unit which enabled me to bolt the motor rigidly to the frame (pic 3) - most of the home made sanders I looked at had the whole motor pivoting to provide belt adjustment.

The drum is mounted on a 1" shaft and is made from lots of plywood discs glued together. It also has a spring loaded section (pic 4) on the end which aids in tensioning the abrasive belt.

I left the shaft long (pic 4) for the future attachment of a large disc sander.

The table is a piece of laminated kitchen benchtop and pivots on one end. It's adjusted by turning the large white circular handle/knob (pic 5). I was a bit concerned about the rigidity of the table setup but after using the sander many times I'm very happy with it.

The whole unit has wheels and is easy to move around my shed.

And last and most importantly it's finished in a very pretty blue colour :D.

Kev

Kev that's fantastic work and ~ 20" wide to boot :2tsup: I see that's about a 2 to 1 reduction so I assume that's a 1750 RPM motor and the drum is spinning about 875 RPM which is right nice sanding speed. How many horse power is the motor?

I seen plans for one that had a hand crank table that advanced under the drum as you cranked the handle. I think it was in Fine Wood Working magazine.

G'Day Kev,

I would like to ask some probably obvious questions, if you will pause from using your fantastic sander:

1. How is the sand paper secured to the drum?
2. What is the purpose of the hex bolts/nuts on the end of the drum? You say the disks are glued so it would not be holding them together.
3. What size motor are you using to power the drum?
4. What RPM is the drum running at? I guess that it would need to run at the same sort of speed as a belt sander 300-400-500 rpm. Looking at the drive from motor to drum seems to be about 2:1 step down?

Looks a great tool, I would really like to have a go at building one and I like the blue paint job.

Johngi

The angle the photo from is a bit deceptive. The motor and spindle pulleys are actually the same size, and spin at 1350 rpm.

The motor is 2hp and has more than enough grunt.

The table is very smooth and it's quite easy to feed timber through. I'm not sure a crank handle setup would be much of an advantage.

Kev

G'day John,

1. If you have a close look at pic 2 you'll see how the ends are attached - a groove was routed in the drum. The end of the paper is placed over the groove and a small wooden block is screwed in place over it.

2. The end 40mm or so is seperate to the rest of the drum and is spring loaded. I release the screws, wind up the end section and nip up the screws. I then attach the paper and undo the screws - the spring then takes up the slack. Then I tighten the screws again.

After going to all this trouble to make this bit I'm not totally convinced it was worth it. I think wrapping the paper on tightly from the start would probably be quite sufficient.

3. It's a 2hp motor

4. The spindle turns at the same speed as the motor - 1350rpm. Opinions vary as to the correct speed to run drum sanders at. I looked up the specs of several professionally built sanders and decided on 1350. It works well and doesn't burn the timber.

It's such a handy machine to have - I find I use it just about every time I go to the shed.

Thanks Kev,

Sorry about the motor HP question, later noticed you had said it was 2HP in your first post.

The paper tensioning system sounds a positive idea and removes any hit and miss paper wrapping, worth a bit of fiddleing.

Been out in my sheed and have found the same shade of blue paint you used. Thats it, I have to go into production as soon as my cut-off saw stand is finnished.

Thanks again,

John

nice one kev http://cdn.woodworkforums.com/http:/.../2thumbsup.gif

Quote:

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Originally Posted by *Kev

The angle the photo from is a bit deceptive. The motor and spindle pulleys are actually the same size, and spin at 1350 rpm.

The motor is 2hp and has more than enough grunt.

The table is very smooth and it's quite easy to feed timber through. I'm not sure a crank handle setup would be much of an advantage.

Kev

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I keep coming back and looking at your great sander, Kev. I especially like the fact that it doesn't have any hold down rollers that would flatten a cupped timber before it hit's the sanding drum. Unlike the store bought auto feed sanders with hold down rollers, yours will get a true flat timber face - brilliant :2tsup:

Hi Kev,

well done! I was trawling for more details when I saw a drum sander made to fit onto a woodwork lathe so my plans are all up in the air again.

That I really do like - thanks for sharing your ideas and I love the recycling.

Have a green 1.

Regards,
Bob

Hi Kev,
A handy machine you have built there. Looks good and solid.
Thanks for posting.
regards
John

Hi Kev, first off let me add my voice of praise on your fine looking sander.
I'd like to ask, about feeding the boards thru the sander, it looks like you feed in by hand? I'm presuming that you would have to do the infeed against the turn of the sanding drum? I've never seen a drum sander in action before so i'm not too sure on their workings only that i'd love 1 myself.

Thanks for the kind words.

Rattrap, yeah that's right. The bottom of the drum is spinning towards you. You feed the timber in between the table and the drum. If feeding from the other side it would rip the timber out of your hands and shoot it across the shed :oo:

I was surprised to find out that on narrow boards, say up to 100mm wide, with 80 grit on the drum it will easily take off 1mm per pass - probably more. I'll have to experiment a bit more.

By applying an even gentle force on the timber it feeds in quite easily.

It's very handy for removing snipe from the thicknesser - so no more cutting 50mm off the end of all my pieces.

Kev