Building Your Own Thickness Sander

Bob Saksa - 12:42am Apr 15, 1999

I would like to build a thickness sander about 20-30 inches wide. Any info would be greatly appreciated

Well, this is a nice opportunity as Phil Joines just sent me this plan for a thickness sander he's thinking of building, and on which he wanted to invite comments/critique from his fellow MIMFians. Hopefully he'll be here shortly and offer some more information.

Deb, Phil, these plans look very similar to a home-made thickness sander I have (made by Mike and Walt Martin, of Sunhearth). A nice heavy unit. Mine has a few features you might want to consider:

1. in-feed and out-feed rollers made of printing-press feed rollers (about 3" dia), with their own motor, ganged by chain drive.

2. My height adjustment is done with a threaded rod-and-nut arrangement on each corner. These are ganged together with a bicycle chain-and-sproket drive. I can micro-adjust any or all corners to compensate for wedge-shaped outputs or "see-saw" distortion by simply loosening the set-screw on the appropriate sprocket, turn its rod to change the table height at that corner, test, and re-tighten. Very handy.

3. Use BIG motors with belt drives! Box the belt runs, so things (your things) don't get grabbed. Mount the motors with hinges, so you use the motors' weight to load the belt, rather than hard-mounting the motor and using adjustment slots to tension the belts. This will help when your motors stall.

4. Put a close-fitting box over the drum with a hole in the top for your shop vac hose. Your air quality will go way up.

Good luck!

I posted this on the other server. I'm glad it was still online. Oh!, the joys of the web! :>)

Maybe when the forum move is done Deb will post the DXF file in the library. A TIF file large enough to read the text is very large. There are detail sketches that need to be added so that everything is clear. Any suggestions or comments are welcome. If there's any interest paper prints could be made available from Deb.

I haven't had time to build this yet. The design is for a 12" diameter drum, 20" wide. I'll probably go to 30-36" wide when I make it so it can do table tops, etc. in one piece.

The drum sections are cut from 3/4" MDF using a router and template. Most of the frame is also MDF with oak for critical pieces. MDF prices here are reasonable, about $17 a sheet, but some places it's as high as $60. Standard 3/4" plywood will do for the frame, but the material for the drum needs to be solid. Because standard plywood has voids I would not use it for the drum. The sand paper is held to the drum by a wood dowel cut flat on one side. It fits in a hole drilled in each section of the drum. There's an arm on the ends of the dowel with springs to tension it. Most of the drum sections are hollow to reduce weight. Some are solid with a hole for the 1" diameter shaft. The holes need to be accurately placed so that the drum will run true. The drum is trued after the entire sander is complete by gluing sand paper to the carriage and sanding it. The sand paper stays on the carriage to keep the material from sliding around.

The table is two layers of 3/4" plywood. It is hinged at the rear of the cabinet. The height adjustment is a threaded rod that runs through a nut in the front frame brace.

The part numbers on the plan are from the MSC catalog. That's not an endorsement, just a handy way to keep track of specifics. Their catalog is free and runs 4000 pages. www.mscdirect.com

I think that's long enough for now and maybe even understandable. :>)

Dwain, I haven't looked into a power feed. I found some 2 horse variable speed motors for a very good price. (gloat) The dust collector connects to the curved cover over the drum. It may be useful to add flaps across both sides of the opening to control/direct the air flow. Your table adjustment mechanism sounds good, can you describe the blocks that locate the ends of the shafts, size of shafts, how the shafts attach to the table, etc.?

A power feed system will make a really significant difference. Without it you will get valleys in your sanded surface no matter how evenly you try to feed the wood. With a power feed you can get a dead flat surface; plus you don't wear yourself out pushing on wood all day. I learned this difference when the conveyor belt broke on my Performax and I hand fed some maple for a neck. I went out the next day and bought a new conveyor belt. Good luck!

Dwain, I haven't looked into a power feed. I found some 2 horse variable speed motors for a very good price. (gloat)

...The dust collector connects to the curved cover over the drum. It may be useful to add flaps across both sides of the opening to control/direct the air flow.

Your table adjustment mechanism sounds good, can you describe the blocks that locate the ends of the shafts, size of shafts, how the shafts attach to the table, etc.?

If Deb will tell me how to upload a jpeg, I'll take a picture of the detail, and any others you'd like to see. Alternatively, I can create a page on the Thickness sander on my web site and post the URL here. Deb, are you there?

I built a 24" thickness sander about 16 years ago based on articles in the GAL Quarterly at the time. For the drum I used a length of 6" well casing a local well driller had around as scrap. I had access to the metal shop in the school where I taught and made 2 6" discs welded to a 1" shaft and then welded the casing over it. The shop teacher had a friend who then milled and balanced the casing. I spiral glued the sandpaper (from a 6" wide roll) to it. Pillow block type of sealed bearing on an open maple frame for mounting. I agree with the hinged motor idea. I used an old washing machine motor I had lying around--I think the only thing that enabled it to work was the hinged system. Later I started using the 1HP motor from my table saw (a 30 year old Craftsman) with an extra pulley on the shaft. Worked much better. Not the safest in the world though. The double thickness 3/4" plywood table seemed fine. I contact cemented a piece of sheet metal (fairly thick) to it and polished and waxed that. Other than these things it was the basic design of the one shown above. The widest I used it for was mountain dulcimer backs, and tops. Sold it for a song when I moved and wasn't building much anymore. Now that I am getting back into luthierie slowly, I wish I had it back, of course. Hope this helps with some ideas.

How does attaching the sandpaper around with some sort of recess or the hole and dowel work out? Any problem with thumping as that spot comes around? The spiral gluing ran very smoothly.

Chuck,

I usually mount motors on hinges, sometimes with a spring to add pressure and act as a shock absorber.

The edges of the hole for the paper are tapered so there is a smooth transition. The problem with self adhesive paper is what do you do if you want to change grits? I don't do production so the machine will be used for both thicknessing boards and flattening glued up panels. I'm not sure what grits I'll use for the various operations so I want to be able to change paper easily. I haven't had access to a sander so I don't know if it's a valid concern. Hook and loop may be another option. I think Klingspore has large H&L sheets and the backing material.

I haven't had access to a sander so I don't know if it's a valid concern.
It is.

I'm not sure what grits I'll use for the various operations so I want to be able to change paper easily.

I only used the sander to rough sand -- 80 grit -- if I remember right. The rest of the finishing was by hand with paper(tops)and hand scraper(backs and sides). Being able to change grits would be great and since you say the slot causes no thumping or other problems, the next one I make will add that feature. What do you use for paper in that setup?

I think either Klingspor or Red Hill can cut sheets any size. Another thought, does the padding provided by the hook and loop give any benefit?

I use rolls of 1" strip abrasive. You can by them from MSC. I use 3M Super77 spray adhesive--cleans up real well with GooGone. I mount the strip in a spiral across the drum, having sprayed both the drum and the strip with adhesive. I have a batten shaped like the trimmed ends of the spiral so they are coplanar with the end of the drum. Then I wrap each end of the drum in several layers (3-5) of masking tape, to seal the ends of the abrasive strip. When putting the strip onto the drum, be really careful not to have small deviations and "kinks" in the strip. If it goes on wobbly, it's going to break down a lot sooner.

I do a two-pass thicknessing. Pass 1 with 50 Grit corborundum to get down to about .100", then a fine pass with 100 Grit to get another .020-.030 off the final thickness.

Just to throw a few more ideas into this.... Some of the designs I have seen have, IMO, too short tables. Mine had (I dismantled it when I moved) about a 40-42" long table with a 5" drum, long enough to not have to worry about the thing falling off the end, after going under the drum.

Another point: make sure that no part of the frame impedes access to the table. I have seen some designs where the side supports are higher than the table.

Obviously the larger drum would be better than the small drum; deep ruts would be less of a problem. But if using a power feed I would go with a small drum, and would consider it for a non-power feed. I found myself constantly reaching over my drum (with all possible safety measures taken, I'm no fool), and sand paper is expensive, less drum less paper, and you can't reach over a large drum (which come to think of it, may be a good safety feature, as long as the drum is well covered).

And speaking of paper, I looked into the 1" strips Dwain describes...man, that stuff is not cheap!, so I tried common 6x48 belt sander belts, with success. Point of caution though, if one end of your drum is slightly smaller than the other, you want to start applying the paper from that small end, otherwise you will end up with overlap problems.

One final idea: I could not find a cheap, used motor when I built my machine, so I made a larger two level frame and put my jointer and thickness sander on the same frame. With the two pulleys back to back, I could switch belts from one machine to the other. Two different pulley sizes were used to obtain the right speeds. And two belts, as well. The motor was hinged, which it would need to be for this to work. And speaking of speeds, opinions will vary, but I found this to be not nearly as critical as the info I had read suggested. Mine ran a fair amount faster than other machines that I had read about, with no problems.

I've uploaded the file table-adj.jpg to the library, showing the chain/sprocket height adj mechanism on my thickness sander. Let me know, Phil (and others) if anything isn't clear.

Klingspore sells a cloth backed abrasive strip that is designated 'not for use on drum sanding machines'. However, I find it works great when you glue it with their adheasive - and it is cheap.

Hey Dwain, that's one sweet machine you got there. If you could have seen mine...I don't know if you guys would even let me in here. <g> Mine was made of all salvaged 2-bys (except the table). "It's a tad warped...ah who cares, it's free, ain't it?" But seriously, results are what counts (I guess) and it was designed to deliver precision work, and it did. Good enuf.

Hey Phil, the height adjustment setup that I used was very similar to yours, and while I was skeptical it worked great. A couple of points though. You want your adjustment handle as high as possible. It looks kinda low in the plan. Also my handle was nine inches long which was perfect. If it's too long for you you can always cut it down.

Another thing, I added a T (a T added to your T) to the handle with a 3" piece of broom handle attached in such a way that it was loose, and could therefore be held tight while rapidly raising and lowering the table. This is similar to the height adjustment on your table saw. This should be about 2.5" from your screw threaded rod (no more, this seems about perfect). I offer these possibilities in order to expand the options as wide as possible, not just for you Phil, but for anyone who may need a cheaper, easier alternative.

Dwain, at how many RPM is your sanding drum running?

Jens, I'll have to figure that out. I suppose you want lfpm (linear feet per minute) rather than RPM?

<RANT><RAVE>BTW, guys, I violently disagree about economizing on primary tooling. If you want to economize, do it on blue jeans or Kleenex or something. Your tools, especially your primary tools, should be the best you can get--they will govern how good your work is, and sometimes will determine whether you stay safe and sane. Walmart and its gospel of price-driven shopping is a satanic influence on this culture! Save yourselves before it is too late </RAVE></RANT>

So Dwain, I guess you'll be running right out and buying one of those $3800.00 smoothing planes that are being reviewed in this months Fine Woodworking? <g>

Was it Total Shop whose mantra was "the skill is in the machine?" The truth is, few if any of us with a roomful of tools could build as good a guitar as the Ramirez family built with a bucket full. Skill and hard work can substitute for expensive tools.

Unfortunately, some of us have no choice but to shop at Wal Mart. Luthiery is in danger of turning into a gentleman's pursuit. We are already seeing discussions here of the best CNC routers to buy for under $25,000, or some such. I'm going the otherway; Roy Underhill is a hero to me. I probably shouldn't mention that some have made thickness sanders with maple pillow blocks.

This is a topic that comes up from time to time, here. Maybe we should start a thread on this topic, but I've said all I want to. And I mean no disrespect to Dwain. Actually, I agree with him.

I completely understand not being able to afford top line tools. Not long ago my "power tools" consisted of a skill saw, saber saw and router interchangeably mounted it the same home built cabinet.

Actually I'm revising the plans to be built either way. The basic machine can probably be built for $200US.I'll also have chain height adjusters and power feed for those who want them. It won't be the least expensive sander possible but I want it to last 10+ years with out problems.

BTW I just got a flyer from a sander manufacture. Their list prices run from $3,100 to $4,800 US. They will give you a discount if you buy one RIGHT NOW!!!

One of the guys in the local wood working club has a comercial sander for sale cheep. How do you move a 14,000 pound hunk of cast iron? Besides my shop has a wood floor and I don't want to replace it!

Now that Gene has let the cat out of the bag, I can go ahead and admit it, Yes I made a thickness sander with maple pillow blocks and have been using it for over two years. and my plates vary within .01 inches in thickness..

Say, has anyone built or had experience with the Moritz Designs 22" thickness sander. I came across the plans buy typing "thickness sander" on ebay and bought them. The plans are not all that great but the machine seems very well built and has a single table adjustment rod. I hope to build one soon unless I hear negative feedback. Any search engine should generate a picture of the machine.

Lonnie,

I have their plans. I don't consider them either clear or complete. I haven't seen a unit based on them.

Lonnie,

I built a thickness sander based on their plans. I agree that the plans are pretty poor but they were adequate with a little ingenuity. The sander kind of grew from the original design as I built it. The whole thing cost me abou $30 with the belt, 3/4 allthread and pillow blocks being the most expensive. I found a 3/4 HP motor at a garage sale for $5 and all the rest was scrap wood. An old counter top worked well for the adjustable table.

I made some endpeices of plywood and screwed a piece of sheetmetal to these for the dusthood and attached my shopvac to i twith good results.

The hardest thing was wrapping the sand paper. It seems that I didn't payt enough attention to getting the table straight so when I turned the drum it was slightly conical. This leaves about a 1/4 - 3/8 " gap between the wraps but it doesn't seem to affect the performance.

It is hand fed so I made some long push sticks for it and you have to pull it through from the other side so it has some slight danger. I also recommend making very small changes and running the pieces through several times.

It ain't pretty but it works great. I just built a dulcimer out of chestnut and used the sander to thickness the wood to 0.125 without difficulty.

The issue is not about paying large amounts of money for tools, but spending sufficient money. Most of the tools at the low end of the price range have to seriously cut quality to get there. Look at tool manufacturers who cater to industrial users rather than the home handyman. The initial outlay will be paid back if only in frustration reduction.

I wish I could remember the source for this comment, but it goes something like ' whoever dreamed up the statement that "it's a poor workman who blames his tools" obviously knew nothing about tools.'

Back to practical issues. Has anyone looked at the Ryobi thicknessing sanders? They are about half the price of the Perfomax. I was wondering how they compare,

Robert,

I've read (I think it was here) that the Ryobi has a problem with flexing.

The real reason I build tools is that I enjoy the challenge

BTW after burning out a budget skill type saw ,my 4th or 5th, cutting pressure treated 2x12's for a set of steps I got a DeWalt commercial model. What a difference! I wish I done it years ago.

I built a small drum sander some years ago. I make mountain dulcimers so I don't need such a large unit. I have purchased and attempted to use a couple of commercial sanders and found them far inferior to the one that I built. I have no power feed, and that is actually a blessing. When sanding resawn material that may not be totally flat, it allows me to slow up the feed until I am over the humps. When it comes to final sanding, I would put my dulcimer stock up against anyone's for flatness or eveness. I like my own drum sander so well that I am considering making another one to be kept in a about a 60 grit for "hogging" off stock when I need to. This one that I made is unbelievably adaptable for sanding all sorts of strange or small parts. My paper is spiral wrapped and I hold each end with a toggle inside the drum. It only takes about three minutes to change paper. For what I do, with the relatively low volume that I handle, I can't imagine a better sander. I have been using it now for some five years. I have a 12" disk on the end of the shaft - for that kind of work.

Hey all, i'm in the process of designing a surface sander. my drum (an aluminum tube)is 7"dia or 21: in circumference. i'm working on h.p. and gear (pully) reduction ratios for the drive train. does anyone have any info on optimum linear feet per minute for the drum and at what feed rate? perhaps someone has specson a commercial model if not their own experience. any help is appreciated. thanks

Hi Michael. No experience, but I'm doing the same, so I've gathered this data from catalogs:

Performax 16": 5" Dia. x 16" drum turning 1700 rpm, 1 hp. Feed conveyor 0-10 fpm, 43 in-lb torque (not too helpful without rpm.)

Performax 22": 5" D. x 22" drum @ 1600 rpm, 1 1/2 hp., same conveyor

Performax 24 & 36: drum speed unknown, 5 hp, feed 0-10 fpm, 100 in-lb.

Grizzly 16": 2x 6" drums @ 2100 fpm (~1337 rpm), 1 1/2 hp, feed 10 fpm, 1/4 hp.

Grizzly 24": 2x 6" drums @ 2400 fpm, 5 hp, feed 11 fpm, 1/4 hp.

Woodtek (Woodworker's Supply) 13" overhead belt sander: 3 hp, feed 0-12 fpm.

I'm planning on 1 to 1 1/2 hp, depending on what turns up at garage sales or the local yearly rummage sale (got a nice half-horse last year for two bucks.) I've seen enough references here to feedless sanders that I'm going to leave that off at first and see how it goes.

Here's an idea to which I have seen no reference. T'other day I was looking through some old Fine Woodworking mags at the library, and saw a drum sander design from about 8-10 years ago that featured a moving table. The board being sanded was held fast somehow to the table and the table could then be pushed, at a safe distance from the drum, under said drum (and yeah, I have sanded off the occasional knuckle, nothin' serious though). My memory of this design is vague, but I would imagine that two tables would be required, one (the lower table) would move up and down (only), while the upper would move in and out (under the drum). Simple, n'est pas?

Gene, my current thought is to prepare a good flat piece of 3/4 ply or mdf, about two guitar bodies long, with a fence about 3/32" high across the middle of it. This could have several sewing-type straight pins or fine brads embedded with just 1/16" or so of the points exposed, pointing "forward" (the direction of travel of the workpiece) to catch and hold the end of the work. This board would carry the workpiece through the sander, and although loose, would function as a sliding table, and hopefully, with a few featherboards here & there, will keep my fingers where they belong. I'm planning side rails on the adjustable table to keep the work under the drum; if need be these could become tracks for this slider. I want to be able to use this sander for the occasional counter or bar top or rough lumber as needed, as well as instrument bits, so the philosophy is rugged and simple.

One great thing about building your own tools is it lends itself to making improvements as you see how the tool fits you.

Thanks for the info Chris. just because i happened across a piece of shafting with a rubber sleeve over it, i'm designing mine with a driven feed. although i have thought about manual feeds. one concern was that when getting down to thin cross sections i feared that while feeding,the force of the drum pushing back on the wood would (g) cause it to in effect lift or arch up further back. this could possibly (or probably with highly figured woods) cause the wood to crack or snap at worst or leave a less than consistant surface. for safety as well as preventing damage to $$$ wood, i thought that one or several "dummy" rollers ahead of the drum to apply downward pressure might help. you could have some tight springs pulling them down. a simple enough way could be devised to make them removeable for those bar tops ect. i don't know if my babbling conveys the idea, but there it is wor what it's worth. good luck and thanks again.

Folks, I have no power feed on my home built sander. I think the aluminum drum is about four inches in diameter. The largest thing that I sand might be a complete dulcimer back or top which may be about nine inches wide by about thirty four inches long. I have found that the lack of a power feed to be of a great advantage. I also can attach all sorts of jigs on my adjustable table for sanding very tiny things and thin things. I can sand a piece of wood so thin you can almost read a newspaper through it. It is great for sanding binding strips, purfling, etc. I have had no problem with the material bowing up when pushing through... and I immediately catch it on the out feed and then pull it through. My adjustable table is about eighteen inches by about twenty four inches long. I have tried two different (and expensive) commercial machines and found them (surprisingly) far inferior to my hand fed machine. One thing we should all consider when making these machines... they must have a good dust pick up... this sanding makes a LOT of dust! That is another good thing about my home built machine- the dust pick-up is fantastic!

If memory serves, Gene, the thickness sander to which you refer was one built by Grit Laskin. The table shuttled under the drum. As for flexing being a problem, I know that the cantelevered designs including the Performax suffer from this disability. Insofar as the non-cantelevered Performax, I know that Huss & Dalton uses one. I asked Mark about it and he complained that although it sands pretty well, the feed belt is sandpaper which has teared in use. The only way to replace the belt is to completely disassemble the machine.

I'd be curious if anyone has played with the Woodmaster thickness sanders which appear to be built to higher tolerances and feature a heavy duty drive belt.

Hi David,

I must confess I have kind of lost touch with what's been said in this tread, but I'll make a few comments anyway. As far as that sliding table and workpiece flexing it would be a simple matter to rig up some sort of vacuum clamping (not that I've ever experienced any workpiece flexing. In practice, I doubt that it's an issue, just remove less material per pass).

As far as that particular Fine Woodworking design, Nelson Palen has built one. Perhaps he'd like to comment (if he's reading this).

John S. have you had any problems with that aluminum drum? What with the way aluminum expands when it gets hot.

Hi guys. Yes, I did built the large (16" dia.) drum sander in Fine Woodworking several years ago. I need to get that old issue of FW out and look at the orig. design as I made several modifications. I installed a 3450 rpm motor with a vbelt that runs directly on the end of the drum. The unit is extremely aggressive. My problem is that I'm short on space so the unit spends most of it's time laying on it's back under the ping-pong table. It's built basically as a cabinet of 3/4" MDF housing everything to facilitate dust collection. I have a drawing of the modified design in Autocad that I would be happy to share with anyone that is interested or post it here or whatever.

OK, give me a day or so to clean up the drawing a little and see if I can convert it to a jpeg for uploading. Then if anyone wants the file in cad format I can email it or whatever. Please keep in mind that this is a basic layout only as I tend to improvise when building. The design does use twin screws connected with sprockets and chain to keep them in time for adjusting the thickness. I'm more than happy to answer any questions I can--this forum is invaluable to me and I want to "reciprocate".

Here's Nelson's plans for his thickness sander:

My thickness sander has a heavy aluminum drum 6 x 18 inches. I don't like to use any type of adhesive to attach the sanding cloth, so I bolted 3/4-inch plywood disks to each end of the drum (exact same diameter as the drum), and attach 3-inch wide sanding cloth to these disks with thumb tacks, spiraling the cloth on the drum and wrapping the ends with several layers of masking tape. I've never had a cloth come loose. When the plywood disks get too full of holes from the thumb tacks, they can easily be replaced, although I haven't had to do this yet after about 20 years of use! Some of you probably already know this, but for those who don't -- if you feed the wood through the sander at an angle (rather than straight through with the grain) it will cut quicker, and leave less deep sanding marks. Also, oily or resinous woods such as rosewood will not gum up the cloth as badly. When sanding rosewood guitar sets I will c-clamp a thin wood fence diagonally across the bed of the sander, and push the wood through against this fence. (my sander has no feed belt).

That article featuring Nelson's sander is in Fine Woodworking December 1990, available at many public libraries.

I'm planning to build my sander soon but i have a question i can't answer myself, i'm planning to build a 16" wide sander.

Here i have a 1/3HP, 1725 RPM motor that i don't use, could i use that one on the sander or i MUST use a stronger motor ??, i would really hate having to go out hunting for a motor having this one sitting here rusting.

i've never used a thickness sander before and don't know the stress they go thru. The main use for it will be removing band saw marks from maple i'll be using in electric guitar tops, maybe to reduce 1/4" to 1/8" maple too.

Any help or advice will be GREATLY appreciated by this newbie.. !

Carlo, I used a 1/3 HP motor on my thickness sander when I first built it. It was an old washing machine motor I had lying around. My sander was about 20" wide, the drum was made from a piece of 6" well casing. It worked fine but you had to feed the wood slowly because of the lack of power. I then started sharing a 1HP motor between my table saw and the sander. Not the most convenient set-up but it worked and the extra power did make the work go much better. So if all you have is the 1/3 HP it WILL work, but keep your eyes open for something more powerful. Good luck.

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