Re: DISC SANDER QUESTION

[Traves W. Coppock]

On Mon, 29 Dec 2003 00:59:23 -0500 (EST), [e-mail] (T.) Crawled out of the shop and said. . .:

snippppp

Heya Joat,

i built one of these about 5 months ago for something to do, and while i cant say mine turned out great, i can tell you what possibly not to waste time on during your planning. . .

make your disk from 2 layers of MDF...plywood does not spin real nice IE: unbalanced due to all the voids...was mistake #1 for me

trying to get the paper to stick to the disk was my second adventure... do yourself a favor, and once you get your disk made and able to run it on the arbor, true it up with a block of wood wrapped in sandpaper. once you get that done, get yourself some of that rustoleum hammered finish paint. i used the spray on stuff myself. it cures real hard, and allows you to get the PSA backed disks. not a real leap in price, and much easier to apply than spray adhesive/velcro IMHO

its an ongoing project here, so let me know how yours goes, and i'll do the same.

Traves

[BSRLee]

A friend has tried velcro and contact cement on his disk-&-belt sander, and swears by the contact. Seems the velcro can creep & gives you ripples in the disk, which stuffs up the disc - I didn't ask what happens to the velcro part. Of course this is on an aluminum disk, so he can splash on solvent & scrape the old worn out disk off with the glue.

The main failing of MDF is that it doesn't like water, but I haven't tried it with volatile solvents like you use on contact.

regards Bruce

On Mon, 29 Dec 2003 00:59:23 -0500 (EST), [e-mail] (T.) wrote: snip

[Dave Balderstone]

Not if you plan on switching the disc before it's time to replace it, in my opinion. I've got the Delta 9" benchtop ROS. It comes with the velcro disk, along with a rubber pad that has velcro on one side so you can stick the adhesive discs to hit.

I hate the adhesive disks. They're a PITA to put on, get off, handle in general especially if you want to switch grits.

Now, if you're building one, you may just want to cut the same number of plywood rounds as the grits you plan on using and swap those in and out. If you do that, the extra cost of the velcro discs probably isn't worth it in the long run.

djb

[Dave Balderstone]

Then I'd say go for the velcro.

djb