Home made drum sander

[CNCRob]

I was in awood working store last week and I noticed their personal sized drum sanders(about 10 to 22 inches wide in size). I was just wondering if anyone has made their own. They did not look very complicated, although I know things are usually more complicated then they seem. Any thoughts or ideals about this?

[ger21]

A drum sander is on my list of future projects. Here's a few links to get you stated.

http://community.webshots.com/album/223700029vUZYCp

http://www.ukuleles.com/BuildingHowTo/sandthck.html

http://www.mimf.com/archives/thickness_sander2.htm

http://www.rockslide.org/drum%20sander.html

http://www.woodcentral.com/articles/...cles_528.shtml

[CNCRob]

Wow thanks Gerry, Those are some great links!

[bgolash]

Hi

Here`s a picture of a wide belt sander I did in 1995. Its a planer and wide belt sander combination machine. It was more difficult to construct then my DIY CNC.

Regards Barry

[CNCRob]

Man, thats a great job Barry!

[ViperTX]

Anyone have ideas on what to use for a metal drum in the 24" to 36" range? Anyone tried to buy a replacement drum for a Performax Drum sander?

[spalm]

I built one many years ago using my wood lathe. It had a table mounted to a piano hinge that was tilted up with threaded rods from the bottom. I had to reverse the rotation of the motor. I turned down a glue up of 2x4s and then spiral wrapped it with sandpaper strip. It worked OK, created a lot of dust, but was kind of hard to get a really nice finish out of it. I would take pictures but the lathe had to go when the CNC arrived.

Steve

[ger21]

You don't really need a metal drum. A wood drum might be preferable. The websites I've looked at talk about truing the drum by putting sandpaper on the table and raising it into the drum. That makes it perfectly aligned to the table. If you use a metal drum, you'd have to make some type of adjustment to align it, and that would be a lot harder, imo.

[fyffe555]

Some time back I built my drum sander using the rollers from an old treadmill. It provided end bearings and two 24" rollers. The Motor and controller is now going on my mini lathe when I get the time.

The sander works like most of the hinged table designs except my table is fixed and the gantry holding the roller is on an axle at the table height so the roller can arc down towards the table. A crank handle on one side, like a table saw height adjuster sets the height and a lock on either side clamps it. It works ok for lighter passes, say up to an 1/16". Needs to be beefier for heavier passes or outrageously coarse paper. The belt came from ebay and I cut wooden rollers to carry the belt. The opposite of Gerry's suggestions! If I where to do it again I'll use the treadmill rollers for the belt since I already had identical rollers, a single wooden roller for the paper and save a lot of agro.

As to leveling the bed I just set it up and passed a piece of stock the side of the bed through the machine, replaced the bed with the newly cut piece and leveled the rollers to the new bed. Seems to work OK.

I have a huge industrial twin roller drum sander in the garage if anyone wants one and can pick it up (33703). 36" capacity, twin 6" Al. rollers both driven, 4" vacuum port, seperate motor for drum and belt. Currently it's got a 7.5hp 3ph motor on it that weighs a ton! Easy conversion to single phase with a decent motor though.

Too many projects not enough time.

[CNCRob]

Hey fyffe555, I was wondering if you have any pics of your homemade sander. The treadmill design sounds pretty interesting.

[cbass]

Originally Posted by ViperTX Anyone have ideas on what to use for a metal drum in the 24" to 36" range? Anyone tried to buy a replacement drum for a Performax Drum sander?

I've seen a lot of rubber lined steel rollers in the 4-8" diam. range come out of old printing equipment (Offset printing I think). These might work well with or without the rubber. They are generally quite wide (24-36").

Carlo

[PaulH]

I would really like to start designing and building a drum sander. I'm still debating on whether I should go for the enclosed gantry, like the big ones use, or the newer style that have one side open for benchtop use, like some of the Performax sanders.

Would there be any interest in my plans and build journal, even though it's not really CNC?