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There have been a lot of discussions on building drum type thickness sanders and even some on wide belt sanders. Just curious if anyone has ever built a thickness sander using, for example, a 6x48 belt sander. Take the drum head off of a Performax and replace it with the belt unit? I'm thinking that the crown on the drive drum would be a problem unless it could be replaced with a "flat" drum.
Just wondering.
Nelson

Nelson, i built my drum sander using a 1/2hp mmotor, belt, pulley, pillow block bearings, 1/2" steel rod for the shaft and ABS 3 " DIA pipe for the drum. The hardest part was the lever handle which i had someone weld for me. Your description sounds a little harder to achieve but maybe someone else with similar experience might show up. but if your interested in seeing my set up, i'll throw in a couple of pics! hope this helps!

Serge

Hi Serge
I have a Delta thickness sander. I was just trying to envision a thickness sander that would have all the features of the Performax, Delta etc. drum sanders on the market plus the advantage of a belt.   Several folks on the forum are using wide belt sanders because of the obvious advantage, that being the much larger abrasive surface resists overheating and burning. I believe Mario is gathering thoughts and components to build one.
Seems like there would be a market for a "poor man's wide belt sander" built for the hobbyist and small production shops. I mentioned the Performax type sander in the above post as perhaps being the type of building block upon which a belt sanding head could be mounted.
Nelson

That's a great idea Nelson, i'd really be interested in learning more about this subject, wider belts would surely be the way to go for even thicknesses across tops and backs surfaces and like you say, less overheating and burning. I'll give it some thought as well, i could come up with some weird ideas but you never know what could happen if we put them ideas together! Do you know what's available out there for wider belts,( width, length, prices and grits)?

Let's keep in touch for this one

Nelson,

There was once a company who made some of these units, which one luthier I knew back in the 70's bought. He had to assemble the thing from a kit I think , but it was extremely accurate.

I believe I saw something almost exactly like it in a Fine Woodworking publication, "Making and Modifying Machines". The article is called "An Abrisive Planer".

If I thought I could seriously make it in this industry, I would probably opt for one of the new Grizzly units. But, for someone with less re$oure$, this unit found in that FW publication might just be affordable. They show all kinds of details for it.

Seems like a number of parts could be bought from a place like McMaster-Carr. It is low-tech, but looks like it would work well.Don Williams38781.7728587963

_________________
"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

Serge...

I would absolutely love to see pics of your drum sander...This is one tool that I think would be a fun DIY project.

Thanks,
JP

Sure thing tomorrow morning JP, it's almost 1H00 AM here but i'll post some pics when i get up and have my coffee before goin' to work! Deal?

Ok G'mornin' JP, I'm back with pics of my drum sander.

The table under the drum swivels on a bar at one end of of the sander and a 1/2" threaded rod going through 2 bolts that are welded to 2 diferent plates andact as a lever mechanism to raise or lower the feed table









The motor is suspended with springs and swings on a bolted metal plate o each sideSerge Poirier38782.2802430556

Don--I ordered a copy of the book, "Making and Modifying Machines". from Amazon.com. Thanks for the tip, it looks like an interesting read and cheap at $5.00 used.
Nelson

Hey Nelson, don't forget to keep us posted if you have good ideas in that magazine! TIA

Serge

Will do, Serge.
Looks like a drum sander could be converted to a wide belt if there was an easy way of making the outboard bearing removeable for changing the belt.
A bolt-on "superstructure" would then be required to carry the upper idler, tracking adjustment etc.
I realize that it would make more sense to just buy a Grizzly wide belt sander but that would be too easy.
Nelson

I'm with you on that one Nelson, i like to complicate something that is supposed to help me make my life easier If Mario has some thoughts to share, i'd be interested in reading 'em too, in the meantime, i'll continue thinking which is a dangerous thing according to me wife!

I have one of those wide belt sanders built in the 1970's that were featured in Fine Woodworking. Only a few were built and sold and those went to luthiers. Richard Brune, William Cumpiano and John Monteleone were the 3 luthiers that bought sanders from the guy in the article in FWW.

The sander is built like a tank and its most interesting feature is the bearings used on the lower drum which came from a helicopter! The sander is basically the same design as most drum sanders with a few refinements. The table (3/8' steel plate with steel angle iron frame for support) is fixed at the rear on pivot pins and raises at the front to determine thickness. There are rubber on steel feed rollers before and after the drum that are fed powered by a low speed gear motor.

In order to change the sandpaper the bottom and top drums are removable and have ball bearings press fit onto the shaft. Both the upper and lower drum are made of layers of 3/4 veneer core plywood. The bottom drum is flat whereas the upper drum is crowned for tracking. The mount for the bottom drum is in a fixed cast steel block held in place with set screws. The Upper drum is set in blocks that can be raised or lowered for tracking via threaded rods that server to tension the sanding belt as well as control tracking of the belt. The sanding drums are driven by a 2 hp motor by multiple v belts.

There are pictures of the sander on both Brune's and Cumpiano's websites. The wide is 12.5 inches and while it can not sand an entire top in a single pass is very good for general thicknessing before tops and backs are joined. The belt size is 12 x 72 inches. The biggest single advantage of a wide belt sander over a drum sander is the amount of sanding surface area a belt provides compared to a sanding drum. By having over 4 times the amount of sanding surface area it means that much less having to change abrasives.

How I came to own this sander is that at the ASIA symposium in 2003 I won it in the auction for $550.00 as I live only an hour away from where the symposium is held.

The key to the design of a belt sander as opposed to a drum sander is crowning the top drum and building a tracking system that is adjustable to track the sanding belt in place.

Thanks for all that information Shawn, it seems like one would have a lot of fun in building one of these extreme machines, i'll check those websites for sure!

Thanks

I am considering the $4200. Grizzly 18" wide belt sander.
Sylvan Wells and John Monteleone have this machine.Last I checked they both really liked them. They just about brought the price down to where I can do it.

The belt sander I described that I won at the ASIA symposium before last was John Monteleone's. He donated his belt sander to the ASIA auction and had already had the Grizzly on order. Even though the sander I won served John well for 25+ years, now that he has a real wide belt sander he wishes he had made the move much sooner.

The cool thing I get with the sander from John was the upper part of the frame that is not structural is all 8/4 hard rock maple in which John scribed all of his thicknesses for pieces so that a helper would remember. When I won the sander at the auction I got John to Autograph it so I am hoping that some of his mojo will rub off when I build an archtop or mandolin

Okay Shawn, time for you to pass it on now. Oh, and don't forget to autograph it before donating it to the OLF Auction.

Nelson

Shawn--can you post a URL to the picture of the sander on Monteleone's or Cumpiano's website?   Couldn't find it on either.
Thanks
Nelson

Thanks to serge for the pics...I'm still toying with the idea of building one...but...right now I think I'll stick to my Go-Deck, Circle Cutting Jig, and the binding jig.

I'll keep ya posted on the jigs...I think that I have build more tooling than guitar parts at this point in my 1st build.

Thanks again,
JP