Drum sander for lathe

[Mike Burkeen]

I know I havent posted here for a while but that dont mean I havent been busy. I will post some segmented stuff when I get some better photos. I put together a "shop built" drum sander to flatten the rings for segemented work. Here is a quick how to with some photos in case anyone wants to make one.

1. Glued up a 3 1/2 blank about 14 inches long and turned it round (approx 3 “). Take lots of time and make SURE it is round and flat from end to end. Remember the flatter the drum the flatter the sanding job.
2. You can buy sandpaper made for a drum sander at about $50 or do like I did and buy a 4 X 36” belt sander belt ($5) and cut it to fit. I used turner’s double faced tape and wrapped the drum in one direction and the belt in the other direction. The ends will
want to come loose if you don’t fasten them so I used some aluminum air conditioner tape and ran a few layers around to hold the ends.
3. I used melamine for the platen and the bottom because it is very stable, flat and pretty slick stuff to slide the wood on. Cut a 14” X 24” top platen and a 16” X 24” bottom piece.
4. Install hinge(s) so that the two pieces form a V, The bottom piece for a base and the top piece to be used as a platen to hold wood against the drum and will hinge upward to vary the thickness.
5. You may have to adapt a way to adapt the sander to your lathe. I have a “Jet clone”
mini lathe that has 2 rails with a 1 ½ wide slot between them. I glued a ¼ thick 1 ½ wide strip on the center of the base to keep it 90 degrees to the lathe bed.
6. To hold the base down I drilled 2 holes in the base through the strip and used carriage bolts in 2” X ¾” blocks that pivot to secure the base.
7. To raise the platen I installed a T Nut in the base and jammed a homemade knob on the end. I rounded the end of the threaded rod so that it didn’t dig into the platen. A cap nut may be a better idea.
8. At this point you have a working homemade drum sander. It is a manually fed (from the bck side of the lathe). You can use a push stick (thinner than the stock being fed) OR create a sled to put the segments on and “pull” it through. I made one from ¼ hard
board with ends glued on.
9. I added a “dust collector/finger guard” from a piece of 4” PVC cut in half with a dust
port epoxied in. Not necessary but it does cut down on the dust.
10. Make several passes and don’t try to take off to much wood. I am sure this is very
hard on the belts.

I have a few more photos that I post if someone needs a better view on any of the steps.

[Mark Pruitt]

That is soooo cool! Thanks for posting it!

Mark

[Sean Troy]

Now thats imagination !!!

[Jeff Myers]

Mike,
WOW! That's very nice,,,couple questions:

How do you have the drum mounted between centers?
Real easy to put on and take off? and does the drum align back up
properly each time?
Do you have any problems with the pieces being sanded wanting to
lift up at the beginning or end of the sanding pass when it nears the edge?

[Don Fuss]

Very cool Mike. I might have to make one for myself so I can get into segmented work. Great idea!

[Mike Burkeen]

Thanks guys

Jeff,

It is just mounted between centers. It does seem to line up pretty well. The centers leave a dent so each time I use it I just line up the centers with the depression made by the first time I chucked it up and go. The base goes on and off real easily. Loosen the two carriage bolt/retaining knobs on and pivot the 3/4 X 2 in board to line it up with the lathe rails and lift straight on and off.

To answer your last question .. Yes. It does seem to lift the front edge when the trailing edge is going through. It seems to do this more if you dont use a sled than if you do. I assume that the board on the back of the sled seems to hold the back edge a bit better so it doesnt pivot up as easily. Smaller segmented rings seem to do this more than larger rings. I have been just putting a slight bit of pressure on the front edge as it exits to keep the back edge down and that seems to help. Got any ideas on how to stop this from happening?

[Stu Ablett in Tokyo Japan]

That is VERY neat, I've got my old C-man tube bed lathe sitting here, I've been wondering what to do with it.... :rolleyes:

How did you get the drum so smooth and straight?

I'm thinking a router on a sled, above the lathe would make a darn near perfectly round and straight drum.....?

I need to figure a way to sand all them large chunks of wood I have drying on my roof top........

I guess you could make two or three drums, all with different grit paper on them.............Geez Mike, you might have made a bunch more work for me! :D

Cheers!

[Jeff Myers]

Mike,
Maybe some type of "feather board" setup like a 14" wide piece of slick
thin stock material capable of bending a little or a roller like the portable roller stands have,,,mount it to the dust port's framework so it is as close
to the back of the drum as possible and has some constant downward pressure??? I'll have to think on that,,,, but what you've got is a great
addition to the lathe for next to nothing cost. Thanks for sharing,,,if
i come up with a solution for holding it down i'll let you know.
:rolleyes:
Hey,,,how about an "upper" platen where the edge closest to the drum is just above the bottom of the drum and the edge furthest from the drum
is free floating,,,place a weight on the top of the platten,,,any thickness
material will raise the platten and the weight(if enough) will hold the material down to keep it from lifting as it exits the drum,,,you could hinge this platten to the dust port's framework.

[Lee DeRaud]

How did you get the drum so smooth and straight?Sand it: assemble the unit, put sandpaper on the bed (instead of the drum), and crank the "thickness" adjustment down until everything is trued up.

[Mike Burkeen]

Stu, I actually have 2 drums now, one with 80 Grit and one with 120 grit. When I made the drum I turned it as close as I could and glued a full sheet of 80 grit paper to a board and then ran it under the drum and held it there until it was perfectly flat in reference to the drum. Used 150 after that to get it real smooth. It really doesnt have to be down to the 1/100th of and inch becuase the belt when wrapped around isnt "absolutley perfect". If you come up with a way to fasten one to a "tube type" lathe let me know. My brother wants me to make hime one but we havent figured out how to fasten the base to the tube.

[Bernie Weishapl]

Very kewl Mike. May have to do one myself.

[Stu Ablett in Tokyo Japan]

Stu, I actually have 2 drums now, one with 80 Grit and one with 120 grit. When I made the drum I turned it as close as I could and glued a full sheet of 80 grit paper to a board and then ran it under the drum and held it there until it was perfectly flat in reference to the drum. Used 150 after that to get it real smooth. It really doesnt have to be down to the 1/100th of and inch becuase the belt when wrapped around isnt "absolutley perfect". If you come up with a way to fasten one to a "tube type" lathe let me know. My brother wants me to make hime one but we havent figured out how to fasten the base to the tube.

OK, thanks for the info Mike and Lee!

Mike, to attach it to the tube type, I'm thinking I'll just attach it to the base that the lathe is mounted on...? Basically ignoring the tube.

With the tube lathe, I could make a nice BIG sander that I could sand some of my BIG boards on (with the proper in-feed and out-feed support). I'm also thinking to make the board under the drum adjustable at both sides, so the angle into the drum does not have to be so steep...............?

Cheers!

[Richard Madison]

Attaching to the tube is easy enough, but it takes up some space above the tube for cross bolts. Stu's idea of attaching to the mounting board is lots easier and simpler.

[Gary DeWitt]

Outstanding design! I have been saving up for a bigger lathe and have a performax 10" drum sander I was debating about selling, this pushes me over the edge. As long as I can build something to run on my old delta midi, I might as well sell.
This post was just in the nick of time, thanks a lot!

[Keel McDonald]

Awesome, Mike!!! That's very unique, and practical.

[Art Mulder]

Two questions

1- As the bed is hinged at one end, aren't you restricted in what thicknesses you can feed through?

2- and how carefull do you have to be with the feed rate? Does it burn easily if you don't have a nice steady rate?

[Keith Burns]

Mike, very nice job ! Can't wait to see some of your segmented work.:) :)

[Mike Burkeen]

Art, Yes the thickness is somewhat resticted but only by the distance between the bed and the drum. I have a 10" capacity Mini and a 3" drum but can still plane a 3 or 4 inch thick piece. It really wasnt built to plane off large boards or slabs, I really built it to flatten rings for segmented work. And yes you do have to be careful with feed rate. At first I bogged the little lathe down by taking off too much on each pass. It really doenst seem to burn at all.

I did accadentally feed a disk the wrong way. Shot out like a cannon :eek: This would proably work well for a skeet thrower too. (Just kidding)

Gary, I would say build one first and then decide if you want to sell the performax. ... This aint no Performax thats for sure.

[Lars Thomas]

This is really slick. I have to add this to my ToDo list. lars

[Gary DeWitt]

Tell ya the truth, I've never been happy with the Performax. Any tiny bit of wood more than it can handle, and the overload switch trips. Goes off much sooner than you would expect, with a 1 hp motor. Also, I only use it ocasionally.
As for sanding rings, they can be flattened on the lathe, by building up one ring at a time(glue one, turn one), or by using a sanding disc on the lathe. What I'm interested in is removing the blade marks from the band saw when making thin lumber for laminations. Doesn't take much. Thanks again for the design.
How about a belt sander (6x48) powered by the lathe? Got any ideas?

[Mike Burkeen]

Gary, It sounds like this little drum sander will work out great for you application. I have flattened ring once on the lathe, Just seemed to take forever. I would rather flatten rings and gule up a whole stack. After 3 or 4 days of cutting and gluing, cutting and gluing I get a bit anxiuos to put it on the lathe.

A 4X36 belt sander huh? Boy that is a tough one. HMM?? Would take 2 sets of rollers and a platen. Havent really thought about that one. If I come up with anything you fellows will be the first to know.

[Gary DeWitt]

Don't mean to hijack your thread, but this is along the same lines. I can imagine a smaller drum, say 6" wide by 3"dia, that turns on the lathe and drives one end of the belt. Some sort of hinged fixing to the lathe bed for a framework that indcludes the other roller and platten. This second part would somehow hinge up and down in such a way as to lengthen and shorten the distance between the rollers, and a weight hanging off the end to keep tension on the belt. I just can't come up with the pivot and how it's fixed to the lathe.
Of course, this all has to set up in less than 5 minutes, or it will never be used.
I'm just a fan of not buying more and more motors for the shop, when a perfectly good one is already there. Wastes space and money!