Official Luthiers Forum!

Hello to all. What would be a good and economical thickness sander for a hobbist builder? Would it be better to buy a thickness sander or would it possibly be better to build one? If you build a thickness sander, how difficult would it be to true the sander up so that it sands equally? If one decides to buy, what is a good brand to start with, or if you decide to build where can you find a set of plans, etc?

_________________
Thanks To All:
Lee
Sikeston,Mo.

Lee buddy here is a link, as promised, to a recent thread about thickness sanders. What is most interesting about this thread is that it addresses some of your questions regarding building your own. http://luthiersforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10102&t=14808&hilit=thickness+sanders

I have a Performax, now Jet 10-20 and it works great for me.

I hope this helps.

Lee-
I've built a few thickness sanders and I'd recommend buying a 'factory' sander, unless you enjoy making your own tools and have a well-stocked 'junk box' and electric motors.
All the 'factory' models come with power feed, which is a big plus over the 'arm-strong' feed on many homebuilts. You can find ideas, plans, and pictures for thickness sanders if you hunt around on the web, and in the archives here at OLF, and in the 'Library' at MIMF. FineWoodworking had an article by Grit Laskin and David Wren on 'Building a Thickness Sander' in the Nov/Dec 1990 issue. You may be able to get a copy through your local public library.

I'm sure some users of 'factory-built' models will add comments here. Popular models seem to be the Performax, Delta and the Chinese-made (Grizzly and similar) models. I've used one like this (Griz has similar model)
http://busybeetools.ca/cgi-bin/picture10?&NETID=1530200301081782533&NTITEM=B2269
when I took a course at Sergei deJonge's and it seemed to work well- though I didn't have to keep it tuned up or change paper, etc since Sergei and the apprentice crew took care of that.

A sander definitely is a very useful tool. Bandsaw, drill press and sander are the main stationary power tools I'd put on the list to start- but that's another discussion! (You can look that up as well.)

Cheers
John

There you go- Hesh got in with the info while I was typing!
You'll soon have more info than you need. Polish up that credit card!

edlee,
I built mine, but honestly if had the money at the time I would have bought one,,,
So building is fine - if you like building your own tools, or as in my case cant afford one at the time... but if you can afford one - youll be building guitars much faster!
Cheers
Charlie

Thanks for the info guys. I've looked into both building and buying, and seems that by the time you buy all that is needed to build a decent sander and your time to build it, you can buy that Jet sander Hesh has for $500 and all you have to do is plug it up. All the work you have to do is begin testing. I think I'll probably be better off saving my chips up to just purchase something ready to go.

_________________
Thanks To All:
Lee
Sikeston,Mo.

I have a performax 16-32. I have put a lot of wood through it over the past 4 years since I bought it and never had a problem. It is a nice size and doesn't take up much room. This is important to me as my shop is fairly small. This would be the next size up from the sander Hesh has. As a hobbist the 10-20 would probably work well for you. But if you think that you are going to want to use it a lot (for guitars or other wood working) you might want to consider the 16-32. The extra width gives you some more options as to what you can use it for.

Josh

_________________
Josh House

Canadian Luthier Supply
http://www.canadianluthiersupply.com
https://www.facebook.com/canadianluthiersupply?ref=hl
House Guitars - Custom Built Acoustic Instruments.
http://www.houseguitars.com

With the prices you US folks can buy these sanders for, I'd buy one in a heartbeat. Like I said in the previous discussion I built mine, but I'm hoping to upgrade to a commercial sander (with a power feed!) one of these days. Tha 'armstong' thing gets old...

_________________
Rian Gitar og Mandolin

Another satisfied owner of the Jet 16/32 here - I decided that I wanted to be a guitar builder, not a toolmaker, so I just ponied up the cash and bought one - never regretted the decision.

_________________
Mitch

I like that Mitch my friend so I thought that I would quote you!

I have been very happy with my 16-32. Never had any problems and have used it for many years now. The capacity is a big plus to me.

I did build a sander some years ago, and it worked, but the Performax with its features is a much better way to go in my opinion.

Rich

Homebrew here though not advocating or discouraging you from going that route. My issue was the decent sized commercially available ones had too big a footprint for my shop.

I picked up a 25" long 5" diameter drum right from General's wearhouse and designed around it. It works great for the quantity I build. By the time I factored my time and materials cost purchasing a Performax 16-32 or a similar sized Delta wasn't all that different.

Which ever way you go, you'll love having a thickness sander. It has more uses than perhaps you've thought of already.

If you decide to buy instead of build, keep an eye on the tool listings on Craigslist. I found a 16-32 just a couple of miles from home for a very reasonable price.

_________________
53% of all statistics are made up on the spot
http://driftwoodguitars.blogspot.com/

I have a cheap 16-32 equivalent, chinese made (Same as the Ryobi, I've been told) that does the trick. Cost me 400 euros, and worth every penny (and more). I actually had all the parts (motor, shaft, pulley, pillow blocks) to build one, but I realized I'd rather spend what little time I have building guitars, and that I could earn the cash to buy the sander in less time than it would take me to build the thing and fine-tune/tweak it.

Mattia,
Good to hear that sander is working out well for you . You should post up the model and maker, with an evaluation. It looked like a pretty good machine when you showed me the specs, I bet other people would benifit knowing it was a good option (especially on your side of the pond, I remember you mentioning your options were slim).

Peace,Rich

Hi Lee,

I am quite new to this gig and am approaching lutherie strictly from a hobbist perspective. I have been hanging around the OLF for a short while researching tools and jigs etc. to tool up properly first before I start hacking at wood! During my research I established that the first tool I didn't have in my shop that I was going to need was a thickness sander. Buying a thickness sander is not in the cards and it is one tool that I feel can I can build without difficulty. I have scoured the OLF, the net and talked to some folks who have built their own looking for plans and trying to deduce which approach to take and have netted out with a design I found on Jan Jones' web site. Here's the link http://jcjonesguitars.netfirms.com/abrasive.htm.




This design is a little different from the majority of shop builts which have the height adjustment on the table rather than the drum. I spoke with Jan and there have been two revisions he has made to this design.

The first is he changed the height adjustment. On the original design, as you can see, the height adjustment screw applies pressure at one point in the centre of the drum He noted that this put the thickness measurements off by .002" on the outside edges of his tops. He fixed this by introducing two screw rods towards the outer edges of the drum carriage attached by a chain drive to the original centre height adjustment. He says the measurements are now rock solid. I think the same could be accomplished without the chain drive by connecting the centre height adjustment simply to a 'Y' support which would spread the load out towards the edges of the drum carriage.

The second revision he made related to the sliding table. He found that adjusting the bearings was a bit of a pain so he replaced the bearings with wood runners and simply used the table as a sled on the runners.

Hope you find this useful.

Cheers!
Rick

Mattia, where did you find your thickness sander? The only one I've been able to find over here is this:

http://www.metiers-et-passions.com/bric ... ategoryID=

but I'm not sure what it is. The Jet 16-32 from Axminster is 965 Euros.

One thing that many people leave out of the thickness sander equation (when figuring out if they need one, have room for one, and can afford one) is dust collection. I have a very nice performax 16-32 that does everything I need it to. I also have a 2HP dust collector with the HEPA kit.
IMO, the dust collection is a vital component to your sander, so just make sure you keep that in mind when budgeting and space-making.
FWIW, I patiently searched craigslist for about 8 months and ended up getting my sander in almost new condition with 3 huge boxes of paper for $550. Thats about 1/2 what the sander and paper would have cost me plus no tax.
I picked up my dust collector on craigslist, too. 2HP 1600cfm with the HEPA kit and a large garbage bag of hose, clamps, and fittings all in perfect condition for $125. That was a steal.

Good luck.

-j.

_________________
“If God dwells inside us like some people say, I sure hope He likes enchiladas, because that's what He's getting”
-jack handy

Dave: that's exactly the sander I have.

http://www.buitelaar.nl

They're sort of a tiny verison of Grizzly, I think, in that they rebadge/have a bunch of chinese factories make woodworking and metalworking mahinery to their specifications. The sander I got is the same one as Steel City Tool Works sells in the US - downloaded their manual, and it's a decently written and detailed version of the lousy one I got. Cleared a few things up, and confirmed it's pretty much the same exact machine. I paid 400 because it was missing a wheel bracket, otherwise would've been 500 euros, including VAT. Of course, I bought a lathe, chuck, cheap disk/belt sander and a bunch of other stuff while I was there, too. Nice place to shop. I'll be ordering their oscillating spindle sander fairly soon, in all likelihood.

I think tendotools.com sells the same one on a fancier (closed) cabinet for about 50% more cash, and someone on the OLF recently posted a link to an italian supplier who has the same machine. It weighs 80kg boxed up, so shipping's the problem, really.

Like J. says, though, the dust collector is an ESSENTIAL part of a thickness sander. I bought mine (again) at Buitelaar, with a fine dust filter (HEPA equivalent) top end when I got the bandsaw, as I knew I was going to need it. I ran the thickness sander once without hooking up the dust collector, simply sanded an EIR headplate, one pass....and then got un-lazy and hooked it up. Without it, dust EVERYWHERE, particulates, mess, badness. With it, no problems at all.