Help with 12" sanding disk on lathe

[Ben Richardson]

I am doing some segmented vessels and have made a 12" disk, that fits on the lathe, to sand the rings flat. Because I don't have a large disk sander its is hard to correct the half rings before I assemble them. I have the disk on the lathe and I wounder if some one has made a jig that would fit on the lathe and allow good right angle sanding. I think trying to sand them freehand would cause more problems.

[Steve Schlumpf]

Ben, a couple of years ago I made a small 'bench/table' that fit on my old Craftsman mono-tube lathe so I could use a home made sanding disk. The jig you would need to build would depend on which lathe you have.

[robert hainstock]

I use a rest made for a lathe tool rest. It is appx. 4"x6" it is available in one of the many caralogs.:)
Bob

[Bruce Pennell]

Ben I saw this picture on Craigs List was going to build one haven't gotten to it yet. It seems he has made a slot for a miter gauge, I would spend the $18 extra a get a Kreg or other type of miter slot than router it in. Most guy's like the Incra 1000 gauge, very accurate. The pic is posted in the thread. (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=82078) Of course under my name.

[Jim Becker]

It should be easy to mount something on the ways that keeps things perpendicular to the disk.

[Robert McGowen]

If this makes you feel any better.........:rolleyes:

I have done several segmented pieces. (If it wasn't for free mesquite wood, that is all I would do. :D) I have a Jet 12" disc sander, plus a Jet 10-20 sander. I still match up the half rings by hand though. I found that for me it was too easy to make an oval instead of a circle using the disc sander. I use 3M spray to glue 80 grit sandpaper to a piece of glass and then lightly sand the ends. Often, I will hold the two half-circles together so that I am sanding all 4 ends at once. This seems to stabilize everything nicely. Glue them together and then go to town with your lathe/sander to flatten them.

[Richard Madison]

What Robert said. Or you could make a tool post mounted "sanding table". But since the rings are not flat yet, the results are still iffy.

[Bruce Pennell]

Ben sorry it took me so long to reply. No I haven't got around to making a disc sander yet. I found the picture on Craig List a guy was selling his lathe and had the sander with it. Should be easy to put together by copying the picture, sorry don't have any plans. I have been told by a guy in the club that does a lot of seg. work he uses the glass trick Robert told you about. He even glues up his rings on the lathe and uses the glass and sandpaper trick to square off his rings. (face sand) along with joining his rings before hand (like Robert said). The guy from my turning club does mostly seg. work, open and closed. Want to try a open seg. one of these days. Good luck with the sander, like I said before I would buy Kreg or incra's t-slot as an improvment over the one in the picture, and use a incra 1000 miter gauge with it. I believe it was Bill Wilko that uses a incra gauge with his sander, and you know what kind of work he does. Good Luck ....Bruce:D

[Ben Richardson]

Thanks for your reply. I am not very good with out plans or a some instructions. I found a web site that has a small jig that uses the table saw to cut off and square the ends of the segments. It was designed for a large ring 18 to 20". I think I can make one with just the stuff I have around. I will give it a shot. Thanks again for you info.

[Bruce Pennell]

Ben the guy in my turning club only uses a Dewalt miter saw with a 100 tooth blade, and the sandpaper and glass trick. He said two or three light passes with the sandpaper rig, too square the half rings and the same for face glue up, like I said he does it on his lathe has a wax paper covered piece of MDF on the tailstock. Might want to try it first before making a bunch of jigs???? Just my 2 cents....Good Luck one of these days I will try seg. work, just having to much fun making mesquite chips.....Bruce

[Bruce Pennell]

Ben have you checked out this site yet? Woodtreks (http://woodtreks.com/how-to-turn-segmented-objects/37/) Kieth has a great site/blog with video of Don Leman and others coming. Very nice site created by one of our members. Kieth is into Turning and Video production, I think you will love his site. I've RSS it already.

[Mike Golka]

Ben, I made exactly what you are talking about out of MDF and mounted it onto the ways of my lathe. All I did was make a 4 sided box that was the height of distance between the ways and center of the spindle. As long as you remember to flip one half of the ring over when sanding the ends the angles will compliment each other just as they do when you sand individual segments (table does not have to be exactly perpendicular to disc) Hope this helps. If you need pictures let me know.

[Cary Swoveland]

Robert,

I think your approach makes a lot of sense. It is also the one used by Don Leman, in Woodtrek's excellent video at http://woodtreks.com/how-to-glue-up-a-segmented-turning-pieces/38/ . Don doesn't use a disc sander at all. He trues the half-rings by hand, with just a few light passes across sandpaper glued to what looks like a piece of MDF. After joining the two halves, he sands the face with just a few passes over the same sandpaper. Then after gluing the ring onto the partially glued-up piece, he hand-sands the outside face true, again with just a few light passes.

The key to Don's method is accurate cutting of the segments in the first place, which is covered in another video at the Woodtrek site.

It occurred to me that, in sanding the ends of the half-rings, it might be an idea to sand both half-rings at the same time, after one has been flipped 180 degrees. That way, the resulting ring would be flat even if the half-rings were slightly off perpendicular to the sanding surface when sanded. If my "flipping" reference is not clear, think of it this way. Each half-ring is black on one side, white on the other. Lay the two half-rings down, white side up, to form a ring. Now flip one, forming a ring that is white on one side, black on the other. Lift and hold together the middles of the two half-rings, to form a double-wide half-ring. Sand the ends of the double-wide half-ring. Then glue up the ring, white on one side, black on the other.

Cary

[Cary Swoveland]

...As long as you remember to flip one half of the ring over when sanding the ends the angles will compliment each other...

Great minds think alike, Mike, though yours was 47 minutes faster.

Cary

[Kevin Newman]

If your interested, shopnotes issue 49 has plans to make a 12" disk sander attachement for your lathe. The plans also include an angle adjustable table and a circle sanding attachment.

Theres a picture of it at the link below.

http://www.shopnotes.com/issues/049/

If you would like additional information or pictures of the jig, let me know and I will email you some additional photos.

[Richard Madison]

Ben,
I have used a couple of table saw sleds to saw the ends of half rings square and coplanar. One used a piece of paper (.004" thick) as a gage to minimize the amount of material removed, hence less oval shape. Another was designed to cut both half rings at once, one on each side of the saw blade, so if the saw blade was not perfectly vertical the two half rings would still match. Both require one flat side on the half rings, but assuming you glue up on a flat surface and make a couple passes over some sandpaper, you will have that.

How about flattening side one of full rings?