Laminating sheet metal

[LEGEND65]

I've just finished up rebuilding my shop built drum sander this weekend and I'm really happy with how it's turned out, more on that coming in the future. The problem is that I decided to use that phenolic coated plywood for the top surface of the table. I used the same stuff on my router table and it's held up pretty well there. But after 15 minutes of use on the sander it's already scratched to hell, so clearly it's not going to hold up. Doh!

The table is a stress-skin design with the 3/4 ply on top, about 1-1/2 high box made from 3/4 ply, and the bottom is 3/8 ply. It's about

30"x20", was a fair bit of work, and fits perfectly.

It seems like the only thing that's going to hold up is going to be stainless steel. I highly doubt I'm going to get anything to stick to that phenolic. So I'm thinking I need to screw 1/4 ply over it, then I can laminate to that. Can I laminate steel to wood? Contact cement?

-Kevin

[Charlie Groh]

...contact cement should work fine...stainless, bulletproof...don't know, though, I have pretty good luck with laminates, as long as you're not sanding *that* surface...

cg

[Morris Dovey]

I've glued aluminum to wood with TB2 without any problems - but that wasn't subject to much in the way of shearing forces. I can't think of any reason you couldn't glue clean stainless.

You might consider taking a brake to your s/s and bending a 90-degree by either 3/4" or 1-1/2" hook on the upstream end of your s/s surface, and screwing that to the end of your table as insurance against creep.

[Leon]

Can you get a sheet of that slick UHMV plastic? Screw it down and replace as needed.

[LEGEND65]

I have gotten scraps of UHMW and they mostly weren't perflectly flat. I used it for my router table fence faces and had to run them through the drum sander to get them flat. The table is wider than the drum itself, there are flanged bearings on either side in a ply cabinet and the table runs to the cabinet, so I can't just run the UHMW through it to make sure it's flat. Pricewise they are similar.

-Kevin

[LEGEND65]

I should say, there's no feed rollers, I feed the stock through by hand, and there's a bit of vibration passed through. The scratch lines on the table actually almost look like I took an orbital sander to the thing.

-Kevin

[LEGEND65]

The corners of the table are rounded so I don't get impaled on them, so that makes it a little harder.

I don't want to try to screw around with cauls on this and don't have a vacuum clamp, so I'm thinking the contact cement is the safest bet. I guess the bent edge would make lining it up easier.

-Kevin

[Andrew Barss]

[e-mail] wrote: :> as needed.

: I have gotten scraps of UHMW and they mostly weren't perflectly flat.

Do you think a sheet of metal glued down with contact cement is going to be any flatter?

-- Andy Barss