Finishing Sander

[David Sabot]

Hi guys. I have several pieces of 1/4 plywood that I need to sand. Each sheet is 25" x 18" and I have maybe 2000 to do a month like this. I am not too familiar with wood working tools so I am not sure of the best option.

Right now we use a hand held orbital sander and it is painfully slow. I thought something like a planer would work, but I am not too sure. Any advice is appreciated :)

Dave

[Michael Moscicki]

Definitely not a planer. :eek:

Maybe some of the more experienced members can chime in on sanding plywood, but I imagine a drum sander or wide belt sander would do the trick.

You do want to be careful not to sand through the veneer.

[daryl moses]

Definitely not a planer. :eek:

Maybe some of the more experienced members can chime in on sanding plywood, but I imagine a drum sander or wide belt sander would do the trick.

You do want to be careful not to sand through the veneer.

X2!! I would NEVER run a piece of 1/4" ply through my planer. Too much chance of cutting through the laminations among other reasons.
I also agree that a drum or wide belt sander would be the method of choice for what you are doing.

[Quinn McCarthy]

Random orbit sander would be way quicker. I would try a drum sander on a trial piece and see how it di. Or VS belt sander. That is alot of pieces a month

[George Werner]

Yep, I'd go with a drum sander or wide belt sander like this...

http://www.grizzly.com/products/18-1-1-2-HP-Single-Phase-Open-End-Drum-Sander/G0458

[John TenEyck]

Veneer plywood is already finish sanded; you shouldn't need to do anything more than a few swipes by hand, if that. Even a drum sander risks cutting through the veneer because most plywood is not dead flat.

John

[David Sabot]

I am sanding the back side, it has burn marks after it goes through our laser.

[Lonnie Gallaher]

My thought with the drum or belt sander is they do not take into consideration the uneven nature of ply wood. Therefore they will remove the hills and leave the valleys. This is probably not what you are looking for. If one man were able to sand 100 panels a day it would take all month to do the 2000. Not a job I would look forward to each day.

[mreza Salav]

drum or (even worse) belt sander will go through the veneer in no time. You can't really sand a plywood a lot.

[glenn bradley]

My thought with the drum or belt sander is they do not take into consideration the uneven nature of ply wood. Therefore they will remove the hills and leave the valleys.

With a abrasive feed belt and hard platten this is not the case. I cannot speak to rubber feed belts that allow the material to move more. For softwood ply like hemlock, fir and pine I find the drum sander gives a much more uniform surface than a ROS which removes the softer material and leaves the hills for a pretty irregular, although smooth, surface. Getting a uniform thickness on highly figured wood that even a spiral head planer will damage is one of my primary uses of the wide drum sander.

[Tom Giacomo]

I've sanded a lot of ply with a drum sander and it works very well especially if you only taking a small amount off.

[Lonnie Gallaher]

My previous post was in reference to removing the laser burns. Veneer may be removed before all of the burn marks are removed. This would depend on the severity and extent of the burn marks. Without seeing the laser burns, it is hard to judge. It may be that the laser burns have damaged the veneer beyond the ability of a sander to correct.

[Martin Wasner]

There's a few segmented head widebelts out there made for sanding veneer. They read the material and adjust the drum so it filled the contours of the material.

I've never done any real research on them since I don't really have a use for one, but I know they're out there. Be prepared to drop some serious cash though.

[Mike Schuch]

I believe I have come across large platen orbital sanders in the $50K+ range made for doing exactly what you want to do. They are simular in operation to wide belt and wide drum sanders but use random orbit heads instead of belts and drums.