How to build your own thickness sander

[moderator2]

THICKNESS SANDER PLANS

 

Thought I'd share this article here, for all who are interested in wood working. Because if your wood merchants doesn't have on stock what you're looking for, you're forced to settle with what they've got. Or… you can create your own stock to your preferred specifics. And for that it's very useful to have is a thickness planer or thickness sander. If such a power tool is stretching the budget and If you're up for it, you could think about building your own. Here's a great guide to help you. 

 

http://woodgears.ca/sander/plans/index.html

 

 

[ElgaKoster]

My hubby and I changed an old lathe into a thickness sander, but one day I would love to buy the Jim Burnes thickness sander.

[Debora Beijerbacht]

That's a great modification of a lathe! I've seen similar ones once or twice on the net before; it think it's even more easy to build?  Another simple, yet cost effective way to be able to start your new projects with just right sized wood stock.

[ElgaKoster]

Yes, it was easy to build, or so hubby said, I got a few articles off the internet, gave it to him...it is an advantage to have someone with an engineering mind for a husband actually he still wanted to change it a bit, think I should remind him as he is home for the next two weeks. 

[Bill Hudson]

        

 Thickness sander, home made.

This is a home made thickness sander I have had for a very long time. A miniaturist friend of mine passed away and his wife sold it to me. I remade it by rebuilding the adjusting mechanism and truing up the sander drum in my lathe. I think the pictures pretty much tell the whole story the drum is 12" long...

The sanding drum is made up of many discs or 3/4" thick plywood. Originally they were cut out with a large hole saw and stacked together and roughly sanded smooth. When I got the machine I mounted the drum in my lathe between centers and trued it up.

The sanding cover is belt sanding paper installed in a spiral. It is not glued on; just held in place with several wraps of masking tape. This belt and tape has been on for over ten years. It is important to set up your sander so that you feed in against the turn of the drum. Also do not stand in front of the sander while feeding it as if the wood grabs it becomes a projectile which can penetr

 

 

 

 

 

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Bill Hudson

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[Debora Beijerbacht]

That's a neat little sander Bill. Although the reason was unfortunate it's nice think you're continuing to use a tool a friend of yours has build. Your handling tips are mandatory for sure (safety first!)  but i'm surprised you have sanding tape on that's ten years old?! 

[Bill Hudson]

Debora,  It really does not get that much use. I do not use it for finish, only to get near thickness then I scrape the wood down to finished thickness.  There are many wraps p just p.lain old masking tape. If the sanding belt is wound in the correct direction it tightens on the drum and the tape only holds the pointed ends to the drum. You can also  tack the point of the wind or use zip ties. Note the height adjustment is on each side of the table for more accurate thickness or if I want I can sand to a taper from side  to side.

[miraclechicken]

Mind if I show the thickness sander I built? 

 

 

 

 

[WeekendMiniaturist]

Bill, Linda, this is a great discussion... what is the minimum thickness of wood that each of you can sand? I think i can go to 3/16, perhsps 1/8 with our planer.

Elga,

I just found out that we have another lathe at my mother in laws house. I completely forgot that we had one at home. Can you post your articles links for me... I had not considered this before. If I got desparate and did not already purchased from the Boorums or SH Goode and sons, I was prepared to use good carpet tape and a backer board. Tamra

[ElgaKoster]

Tamra my link doesn't seem to work anymore, but I am sure I saved the PDF on my computer, will look for it and mail it to you. Also if you google "lathe thickness sander" you will find quite a lot of info.

[greenie]

Hi all, I can see that a couple of thickness sanders have been made to the plans/drawings of that very popular one on the web.

 

 

Here's my version, much smaller for all the little bits I need.

 

I like to make bits in 1/12th scale and thought about making the very same large Sander, then I thought about what sizes of timber I would need and then chucked the plans for the big one  away.

 

Drew up a much smaller version and set to and made it, it works like a charm and I can take the timber down to 0.010 thou of an inch, or a 1/4 of a millimetre, before it gets torn apart by the sanding drum. It's so thin you can hold it up to the sun and actually see all the open pores in the bit of timber, marvellous bit of gear actually.

 

Does every thing I need it to do.

 

Cant find the drawing I drew and then made it from, two computer crashes seems to have wiped it from the memory, so a few pictures will have to do. 

 

I made it from a bit of 8 mm sheet ally, and whatever other bits I could scrounge to make it all happen.

 

The bit that does all the good work is the 'table top' that raises and lowers, I have the sanding drum in the middle of the table top, pivoted at one end and raised and lowered by a 14 x 2 mm threaded rod. This makes the middle of the table raise and lower exactly half of what the pitch of the tread is, so, it's a 14 x 2 thread, which now means the middle of the table actually rises only 1 mm.

This makes it extremely accurate for when I'm try to get the thickness I'm after absolutely spot-on, turn the handle one full turn and it's 1mm, or turn it half a turn and it's 1/2 mm removed from the timber, easy as, eh.

 

 

Side on shot, anybody can make one of these, just use the side-on photo as a reference.

 

 

 

 

 

Front on.

 

 

 

 

 

Bit of a rear shot.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sanding drum, made two of these and have each loaded with different grades of Aluminium Oxide engineers sanding tape.

You can see how the engineers tape is held to the drum, one of locks at each end, works well too.

 

 

 

 

regards  greenie

 

 

 

 

[Wm. R. Robertson]

Very nice, I like how simple it is and the way you hold the sanding tape. I see you have two drums, it looks like you have to take the whole works apart to replace them or does the shaft just slide out? Also I see a hole to the side of the bore in the drum, is this for a drive pin?

Thanks

[greenie]

Very nice, I like how simple it is and the way you hold the sanding tape. I see you have two drums, it looks like you have to take the whole works apart to replace them or does the shaft just slide out?

 

Also I see a hole to the side of the bore in the drum, is this for a drive pin?

Thanks

 

 

To change the sanding drums, there two cap screws on top of the side plate and another two cap screws on the bottom of the side plate. Just undo those four screws, remove the side plate, then undo another nut on the end of the drive shaft, slide the drum off and replace the other drum, do up the shaft nut, replace the side cover and do up the four cap screws and turn it back on.

The drums do have a drive spigot hole in each of them, just to make sure that they do have a positive drive, that way no drum slipping will occur.

 

regards  greenie  

[ElgaKoster]

Thank you, this looks like a really nice tool to make.