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I’m more of a Hand Tool type guy, but just for fun I built this drill powered drum sander. It has more than enough power to thickness material. 4 pcs of 1/2 inch Baltic birch make the one pc body, rubber drum is a commonly found 10 inch long x 3 inch dia. Couple of 3/8 acrylilic plates to hold the bearings. Total cost less than 50 dollars to make.

Just thought I’d share in case someone is looking for a inexpensive sanding alternative.

How well does it work?

Very cool!

It works very well. I thought it might be under powered but the torque of the drill motor is more than enough to use for anything guitar related. I prefer using hand planes for most woodworking tasks requiring straightening or thicknessesing. However I built this mainly as a experimental tool. I have consistently thicknessed material with acceptable results using this. I easily thickness sanded a pair of rosewood sides in a short amount of time. The body is stable due to being 2 inches thick( 4 ea 1/2 inch Baltic birch ply glued together, and is C shaped one pc. The body extends under the feed table, hard to see in the picture. The acrylic bearing foundations are vertically adjustable to fine tune the sanding drum to feed table parallelism for consistent sanding across the entire length of the drum. It will accurately sand a thickness in a 19-1/2 inch wide pc of material due to the open end. The thing I like about it most is it is very portable and easily stored taking very little room. It probably won’t see a lot of use, but it’s there if I need it.

Pretty amazing!

How is the sandpaper attached? Or, is it a pre-made sanding sleeve? If so where did you get the drum and sleeves?

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

Well, necessity is the mother of invention, that's for sure!

Correct it’s a rubber sanding drum for a spindle sander, 3 inch dia x 10 inch length. And a 120 grit sleeve. The replacement drums are around 15-20 dollars, the sleeves are pretty cheap also. You can get them from multiple retailers ( woodworking ). I used a pc of 1/2 inch all thread for the axle.

Very cool, I need to build one soon. Any other details you can share would be great. Thanks
Ed


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Cool! A cover could easily be crafted to sit on the top and incorporate dust collect from the front side, and to keep fingers safe.


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Very creative!

I’ll get some more pics up tomorrow. Not much to it really. I would suggest using the two locking knobs on the side of the feed table as seen in the pics. I first just tried using the threaded rod only( centered under the feed table for height adjustment). There was too much flex side to side in the feed table that way, after adding the side supports it solved the issue and the table remains stable while sanding. I made the drill stabilizer out of scrap 2x6, it is two pcs with the drill sandwiched between, used a contour gauge to pick up the shape of the drill.

That's pretty cool!

I'd love to see a video of it in use too. Very clever.

How do you collect the dust?

I'm surprised you have had issues with the table twisting. Mine is much wider (24" wide table) made from two layers of 3/4" MDF. The back is mounted with a piano hinge and the front is a single point screw adjustment similar to yours. I don't remember for sure but I would guess that the hinge and the screw are about 18" apart. I routinely use the left side of the table without trying to keep the work over the area supported by the adjustment screw when I do sides and bindings. I haven't noticed any flex. At least I haven't seen any real inconsistency between the thickness across the boards and I have gone really thin when I needed veneers.

What kind of hinge are you using and how is it attached? In addition to the inch and a half tick MDF my piano hinge is mounted with 3/4" oak running the entire length. Maybe the stiffness of the thick table and the even support of the piano hinge is making the difference.

This is a good discussion. after seeing yours, I am tempted to make a smaller, open ended sander that would be easier to move around. Mine is just too big. I'd love to be able to take it outside when I have a lot of sanding to do.

The reason I didn't go with an open ended design was that I use rolls of sandpaper. I usually just tape the ends on since my drum is wider than the table. I couldn't figure out a consistent way to attach paper to a drum that wouldn't cause problems in the center of a plate when I turned it around to to the other side. A sanding sleeve is the way to go there.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

The few times I used it I set it up outside. I’m sure if someone wanted to spend a few more dollars than I did on this you could easily come up with a dust collection hood. I basically just used scrap materials that I already had on hand to build this. Dust collection was on my mind when I built this but I couldn’t come up with enough scrap to incorporate it. It would be pretty cool if someone takes this to the next level.

Bryan Bear

I used some small cabinet door hinges for this that I had layin around the shop. I agree that a piano hinge would be far superior. Someday I may upgrade to a piano hinge. If you do end up building one and making improvements to the design that would be awesome.

Again, very creative. Can you share exactly where you got the drum? Been searching for something reasonable for a rolling pin sander.

Thanks

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One simple "improvement" you could make is to make wedges to go under the table to support that end, and with calibration lines that would allow you to adjust the height of the table quickly between passes.

Couple more pics as promised.

Got it from Klingspors woodworking supply. It’s a Delta replacement drum, they have them in a bunch of different sizes. I made a phone call for this one, wasn’t listed on the website. I’ve also seen them listed on Peachtree woodworking supplies site, Amazon and EBay. Your basically looking for a replacement rubber spindle sander drum. They have inflatables out there too, but I have never tried one. Grizzly also sells drums, not sure if they have anything longer than 5 inches but you could always double up. They Also have the mandrel, could probably make a rolling pin sander out of it. https://www.grizzly.com/products/Shop-F ... gLuV_D_BwE

Thank you, I'd seen the Shop Fox set but have not tried Klingspor...

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Thank You and Best To All