Hook and loop for large disk sander - good idea?

[John Ziebron]

I ended up buying the Grizzly 12 inch double disk sander. After some minor tweaks with a file and some shim stock I'm very happy with the machine. Grizzly calls it slow speed (1720 RPM) to reduce burn marks but I think other makes of 12 inch disk sanders operate at that speed due to direct drive. And it runs very quiet.

It was supposed to come with a coarse and fine PSA disk installed but mine came with coarse on both sides. I will likely use this machine more for metal than wood so I did some testing with only metal so far. The results were better than my expectations. I did end up taking off one of the coarse disks and I can now say that this is a job I don't plan on doing in the future, except once more for the other side. It took me at least 20 minutes using an old chisel and solvents to get the aluminum disk clean.

I happen to have a piece of PSA hook material from Klingspor left over from making sanding blocks. It was big enough to use for one disk. After I got my order of H & L disks i was able to finally try it out. I saw no difference in performance or distortion of the work piece. I used moderate pressure with some 1/2 inch thick mild steel. The metal was barely warm and my rounded corners came out perfect. I think my results, at least in part, were attributable to the short, high density hooks on the Klingspor material. Now I just need to order another sheet of it to convert the other disk.

[Pete Staehling]

I'd advise caution regarding using a disk sander with both wood and ferrous metal. I found that the sawdust in the shroud was prone to catching fire when grinding ferrous metal with residual sawdust in the shroud so I stopped using it for that. I could imagine it being a big problem if there was a bigger fire in the dust collection system (mine wasn't connected to the sander at the time). I only had a little smoldering in the shroud and fairly easily put it out but if I hadn't noticed and had left the shop it could have been much worse.

[John Ziebron]

Pete, I certainly agree with your concerns. I give my wood dust/chips to a local organic farmer and don't want anything besides wood in that collection. I have a large edge sander that I use for both wood and metal but have it set up so when using wood it's connected to my cyclone dust collector but when using it for metal I hook up a shop vac. This disk sander will be set up the same way.