Drum sander/thicknesser wanted

I have a long wish list but right now it is Drum sander/thicknesser something like 25 cms wide for rough work. Could be home made as long as it functions. East Anglia

Reply to
David
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Drum sanders that size are not really meant for rough work or thicknessing. (You do mean a drum sander don't you ?)

Reply to
Paul Mc Cann

Here are two links to see what is out there.

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Reply to
David

Well _some_ are.

I know a guy who recycles old church pews. His first-pass thicknesser is made from a floor sander on an adjustable height carriage over a roller table. Saves him a lot of damaged knives on the real thicknesser.

Reply to
Andy Dingley

Yes Andy . I had a thought about those last night - Not all night. But having used the sanders in the past all i can remember is a lot of high frequency noise. Maybe it was the floor vibrating that amplified that. I am using recycled timber so the planer option is not viable. Any home made versions out there ?

Reply to
David

Have a look at the latest Jet catalogue. They have a new narrow (about 10" model) which looked good when I saw it at the Ally Pally woodwork show last week. Not cheap mind at close to GBP 600!

I covet but can't justify!

Reply to
Norman Billingham

That's because they're American, and American power tools (the good "classic" ones) are beautifully made but pitifully badly designed. Much of the noise is actually siren or whistle noise from the airflow, which is just sloppy design work. Last floor sander I used was Italian

- very quiet in comparison.

Reply to
Andy Dingley

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Well the smallest here is the Jet at 405 mm which is getting close to twice what the o.p. requested, and it definiteley will not cope with rough sanding or thicknessing

And the smallest here is 26".

Reply to
Paul Mc Cann

Ingenious, Andy, but hardly a drom sander and he is not going to get much accuracy when it comes to thicknessing is he ?

Reply to
Paul Mc Cann

This is precisely the type of sander to which I was referring. It will only take very light cuts and is really to be thought of as a finishing sander, IMHO.

Reply to
Paul Mc Cann

Why not? It sands, it has a drum?

Why not? The carriage is better made than most lunchbox thicknessers and it seems reasonably stable. It's a bit on the narrow side, admittedly, but can handle boards in three passes under the drum.

Reply to
Andy Dingley

Perhaps i had better explain a bit more. This is basically for cleaning up reclaimed timber, pallet wood, scaffold board etc. My customers like the used look. Probably use 40 or 60 grit and finish with my orbital. This is not cabinet making but I really need it soon, cos it is really hard work and right now =A3600 does not seem too much. I looked at the Jet model, is that up for it I ask myself. Has anybody got one or is there a chunkier beast out there ? I have over 100 metres of scaffold board to clean very soon, not easy.

Reply to
David

Now you're just being silly.

Incidentally, if he is hitting nails etc with his floor sander in his quest to save damage to the blades on his thicknesser, he will have a lot of expensive pads to replace (Not to mention the trouble of actually replacing them) and he'll be buying a lot of quite expensive sanding sheets.

I'm intrigued to know how he feeds this contraption and what, if any, accuracy he gets with the thicknessing.

And lastly I would imagine most church pews would have a quite good finish on them so can't imagine why he wants to attack them with a floor sander. Come to that they surely couldn't have a lot in the line of hidden ironmongery either I wouldn't imagine.

Reply to
Paul Mc Cann

I just don't see how you can argue with this thing (Heath Robinson lashup though it might be) being a drum sander.

It's not the proud nails that are the problem - you can see those beforehand and punch them through. It's the ones that snapped off at the surface that you don't notice.

Pushing from the end. Don't let go, or it _will_ fire the board back outwards. I never claimed it was safe !

Except for the ends, or any supporting bracketry. It's not _just_ pews either. The main reasons for thicknessing pews are to get the finish off, and to bring them to a consistent thickness. In the same workshop they also build furniture out of some of them.

Reply to
Andy Dingley

I know a couple of people who recycle timber like this. This guy has an expensive "Little Wizard" metal detector that doesn't work. The other uses an ex-army mine detector that's much better.

You really need to saw round them. Neither metal studs or holes are that desirable in furniture. OTOH, the guy who does the really huge chunky mirrors likes all the bits of dross he can get and isn't above scorching the surface with a blowlamp.

Reply to
Andy Dingley

Metal detector? If he wants to take them out eventually that is, or does he just leave them in the finished furniture?

-- Holly, in France. Holiday home in the Dordogne, website:

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Reply to
Holly, in France

I'm sorry its simply not what is recognised as a drum sander.

And they will still make s***e of his backing pads and abrasive sheets ;-)

Presumable he then has to have someone help him pull them through. A floor sander has one hell of a kick as you would soon find out if you placed it on a loose board so forcing a church pew under one while attempting to take any sort of substantial cut is no mean feat and is going to take a lot of force. Light cuts possibly but nothing heavy I would imagine. How does he keep them aligned given that boards regularly skew when being fed through a thicknesser

_

Ahh the penny is beginning to drop. He is really only removing the finish and surface grime so he should not really be taking very much of a cut at all. .01mm should achieve that. But we are not really talking about heavy drum sanding here are we ?

Incidentally I repeat what I said at the beginning of this thread. No small drum sander is going to do what the o.p. requested, IMHO. I even doubt if a very large industrial unit would do it.

Reply to
Paul Mc Cann

We have an ordinary metal detector, mid-range one, which we bought just for interest in looking for old bits and pieces on the sites of houses that we renovate. It's a bit cumbersome for use on timber and we don't need to use it very often, but it works perfectly when we do. Good for finding underground pipe runs sometimes too, as long as they have metal fittings.

And there is that Mexican stuff with the regular, punched, wormholes!

-- Holly, in France. Holiday home in the Dordogne, website:

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Reply to
Holly, in France

I have it on fairly good authority that the holes in that Mexican stuff are made by real termites! A furniture dealer I knew had a piece returned to his shop because the customer heard noises coming from it. Imagination? Well, the dealer set fire to it, and he wasn't the sort of bloke to see that sort of money go up in flames. I believe he carried on selling that range of furniture without further incident.

Reply to
Stuart Noble

Termites don't make holes. If you have holes, then it's some sort of beetle larvae.

Termites hollow the thing out entirely, then it collapses. They don't like surfacing, they don't need to go outdoors, and they've no personal interest in breeding - so termite attack is not only hugely damaging, it's often almost invisible until it's far too late.

We might have a lousy climate in this country, but at least it keeps us termite and (largely) cockroach free.

Reply to
Andy Dingley

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