Tapered Sanding Disc for the Table Saw

[Lance Norris]

Doug Stowe has written several book on box making. He uses a tapered sanding disc on the table saw for sanding intricate inlays and such. Has anybody tried this? Is this any different than sanding on a disc sander? I realize you have use of the fence on the table saw and the ability to tilt the disc, but why is the disc tapered?

[Mike Marcade]

The disc is tapered just slightly so that you can get tangent contact with the surface you are trying to sand. My boss told me about this but I have never seen it in person.

[tim rowledge]

THe big difference is that you have a line of contact with the sanding disc instead of a face. You have to tilt your saw a few degrees - 3 for the one I have - so the contact line is perpendicular to your table.

I've used it for sanding the sides of a box, for 'jointing' small pieces before I got a *real* machine (my MM CU300 :-) and for sanding thin, small pieces to uniform thickness. Since I have good dust collection on my MM it obviously avoids a dust problem when using the sanding 'disc'.

[Doug Shepard]

Got a link to the maker or sellers? Google searched without success. I'd like to check it out.

[Lance Norris]

Tim sent me this link. Thanks Tim
http://woodworker.com/cgi-bin/FULLPRES.exe?PARTNUM=95-430