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After seeing rod's shop and shop built sander, and those of a couple others out there, I was wondering what your opinions were.

I see the performax and such sanders are a bit pricey and was wondering if anyone thought the shop built was worth the task of building, was it less expesive then buying one, and do the home built ones perform satisfactorily?

Does anyone have plans, specs, or a list of what all is involved?

Jon (?)-
I've made a couple of thickness sanders and here's my 2 cents worth...
Whether making your own sander is a good option really depends on -
a) whether you like making tools
b) how well supplied your scrap and spares pile is
c) how satisfied you will be with a sander which may need some 'tweaking' from time to time, may vibrate a bit, etc.
d) whether you want something with reasonable resale value.

If you want power feed and have to buy everything off the shelf you would probably be better off buying a factory-made unit. If you are interested in a basic tool and have a motor you can build something for well under $100.

A search around the archives here at OLF, or in the library at mimf should turn up info for you. There are many home-built thickness sanders out there. The GAL Tools book also has some ideas and basic plans as well.

Another possibility is to build a small unit for thicknessing bindings, sides and such and arrange to have your tops and backs thicknessed somewhere else.

Feel free to follow up with questions here.
There are many more expert builders than me; you should get the info you want.
If you have something specific to ask me, you are welcome to use the pm.
Cheers
John

I'll tell you one thing, I sure would like to have a power feed on mine. This cost me almost nothing cause I had connections for the welding and the drum. I had the motor so really, I think it cost me about $50 total.

Like John said, there are a few things to consider when thinking about building any tool or jig, and he hit all the ones I would have mentioned.

I like to build jigs and tools and for me it's all part of my hobby time, so it's really no big deal. But at some point you really want to be building guitars right.

There's always a trade off (I guess this economics course is paying off a bit) when deciding to built or buy.

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Check out this thread:

thickness sanders

Ron

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Ron Wisdom

Somewhere in the middle of Arkansas......

I built one, still use it and really don't like it. It is a pain to push the wood through, over and over. I needed to minimize my investment in guitar building tools when I started out, so I don't regret going in this direction. If you are starting out, I would recommend just buying the wood pre-joined and thicknessed. LMI does a nice job on this for a very reasonable price. If you get bit by the building bug after a couple guitars, I'd buy one with a power-feed rather than build one.

I built mine about 10 years ago ,its still going strong.It has a 2hp main motor and a small chain driven motor on the power feed.
Without the internet at the time finding the parts was quite difficult to say the least.
I can remember my elbow aching from planing tops and backs to thickness.
Off course we "had it hard in them days"
Tried to send picture but again no luck

[QUOTE=rick218]I built mine about 10 years ago ,its still going strong.It has a 2hp main motor and a small chain driven motor on the power feed.
Without the internet at the time finding the parts was quite difficult to say the least.
I can remember my elbow aching from planing tops and backs to thickness.
Off course we "had it hard in them days"
Tried to send picture but again no luck[/QUOTE]

hi ,it would be nice to see a picture,I dont remember "them days "myself,but I remember my grandfather talking about them.Good luck,oldtimer.

 

I have one of each, a sander I made and one I bought.  The homemade sander works great and served me for about two years before I bought another one.  One thing I will say, however, is when I recieved the boughten one, I was like a kid at Christmas.  I was thickness sanding anything I could find.  The power feed was that nice to have!  It's only 12 inches wide and can only fit one half of a soundboard/back through at a time, but even doing that, you can get the plates to a desired thickness, join them carfully, and I give it a quick once over with a scraper or palm sander and it has worked great for me.  Whichever way you go, build or buy, having a power feed on your sander is something you will not regret. 

Here's a link to my sander http://www.grizzly.com/products/G0459

Nate

I think what everyone is saying is that the best thickness sander is the one that you've got.

Al

There was someone who was building the ShopNotes thickness sander. He had modified to to be 18" wide, instead of the plans 16". It has a belt feed that has to be easier than the armstrong method. We saw the beginnings of it, but I don't remember a report on the finished product. I tried to do a search in the archives, but either I didn't get anything or I got way too much. I do remember that he is a regular poster. Maybe he will stop by and let us know how it all turned out.

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Aoibeann

John your question really nets down to what your budget is and how much shop space you have and how much and what you will use it for.

I build my own to keep the footprint in my shop down to a minimum in my tiny garage. I purchased a 25-inch 5" dia. drum from General in Montreal and the matching pillow blocks and a refurbished 1750 TEFC 1 hp motor. For the amount I build my homebrew works fine.

Would I like a nice adjustable belt feed General, Delta, Performax...etc. You bet.

[QUOTE=novab350]

I have one of each, a sander I made and one I bought.  The homemade sander works great and served me for about two years before I bought another one.  One thing I will say, however, is when I recieved the boughten one, I was like a kid at Christmas.  I was thickness sanding anything I could find.  The power feed was that nice to have!  It's only 12 inches wide and can only fit one half of a soundboard/back through at a time, but even doing that, you can get the plates to a desired thickness, join them carfully, and I give it a quick once over with a scraper or palm sander and it has worked great for me.  Whichever way you go, build or buy, having a power feed on your sander is something you will not regret. 

Here's a link to my sander http://www.grizzly.com/products/G0459

Nate

[/QUOTE]

Wait a minute, excuse my ignorance but, I thought there was some unwritten rule about not ticknessing the two pieces before joining them. Is that incorrect?

Also, what would the difference be between using a tickness sander as opposed to a thickness planer?

My planer can hog off 1/32 to 3/32 per pass and is good to a thickness of stock that is just under 1/4". (it is a Delta 12")

A sander can take off as little as 0.005" and could provide a surface that is ready to finish.

The other thing that tends to happen with a thickness planer, especially on highly figured woods like curly maple is that it will tend to rip out pieces of wood one the figure lines. Some call this snipe, some call it gouging, some call it tear out, but what ever you call it, it can happen and really put a damper on your day when you've spent a couple hundred $ on some nicely figured woods.

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"There's really no wrong way, as long as the results are what's desired." Charles Fox

"We have to constantly remind ourselves what we're doing....No Luthier is putting a man on the moon!" Harry Fleishman

"Generosity is always different in the eye of the person who didn't receive anything, but who wanted some." Waddy Thomson

When I ran a side through the planer I heard a loud crack and much clattering in the dust extractor pipe.  About 2/3 of the side came out the other end of the planer.  Just last weekend I got a Performax sander.  It may be slower and take less cut but it should not grab a grain line and explode a side or back plate.

Kirby

Ouch, that would not have been a nice sound Kirby

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My Facebook Guitar Page

"There's really no wrong way, as long as the results are what's desired." Charles Fox

"We have to constantly remind ourselves what we're doing....No Luthier is putting a man on the moon!" Harry Fleishman

"Generosity is always different in the eye of the person who didn't receive anything, but who wanted some." Waddy Thomson

Todd, did you build the ShopNotes thickness sander?

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Aoibeann

Sorry your shop time has been curtailed, but.... SWMBO comes frist. Hope the family room goes as smoothly as possible for you.

I'll check MIMF out. I hope that they haven't been sent to library purgatory over there. If they are in line to get to the library, it could be a year before they surface again. I really do like our system so much better.

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Aoibeann