has anyone made there own drum?

[Bob Hallowell]

since I am limited in my space and can't afford the money or the room for a thickness sander I was thinking about building my own v-sander from stockroom supply and putting it in the outfeed table of my table saw till I looked at there prices and I thought I can make that for much less.

So has anyone made a drum. I was thinking of 2 differnet ways one was out of mdf turned on my lathe and the other was 4" pvc pipe with mdf turned and fitted in the ends.

Thanks,
Bob

[Matt Benton]

While I haven't done this yet myself, I have been researching and planning to for quite some time. A few thoughts:

You won't be able to remove enough material with the V-sander design to use as a thickness sander. It is really only good for finish sanding (and does a good job at that, from what I've read).

The PVC will start to heat up, and is probably not the best route to take.

The much more common mdf drum is better, but I've heard that it can compress and round off the edges on the workpiece.

I think the best route to take is a steel drum, either from a treadmill or custom made. I saw in another thread where someone had a drum custom built for them for a very reasonable price (@ $50). I'll see if I can find the link...

[Bob Hallowell]

I know it is not a thinkness sander but have watched some video demos showing they can still flatten a raised panel door and maybe some segmented rings if I ever get in to that. I just don't have the room for a dedicated thickness sander.

I was thinking the pvc because this type of sander isn't supposed to generate the heat.

Bob

[Matt Benton]

The PVC should be fine for a v-drum style sander, since the heat buildup will be minimal....

[Travis Gauger]

I have built a "Few" sanders over the past year or so. I now purchase my drums already balanced and ready to go made out of steel. I buy them two at a time for $108 with shipping, 24" long drum with a 3/4" shaft through them that protrudes out one side by 3" and the other side by 4". These drums are 4" round and work very weel in the sanders I make. Here is what I have learned from making a "Few" of these. The MDF is great till you try to true it up. You will sit there for hours making dust and they just never seem to give the results that my customers demanded. Not to mention the cost of the MDF and the time involved in making them. I tried the PVC route, wouldn't recommend that one for you. All sanding generates heat. PVC doesn't take much heat to start to flex then as it flexes it is generating it's own heat and failure happens shortly after that. I tried Aluminum tube over MDF pucks, steel tube over MDF Pucks, etc. I can buy a complete and balanced drum though for cheaper than the materials in most cases. Take a look around and find the other post on Sander drums and i have links to drawings, designs, and menufacturers of my drums.

By the way, I did a similar style from what your talking about with the drum mounted below the outfeed table and powered off the saw motor on a contractor style saw. It was pretty slick all in all, but the customer came back and I built him a thickness sander instead. I have only 1 customer that hasn't went to the thickness sander if they started with the below table drum.

Hope this helps. Send me an email if you need more specifics. thanks.

[Joe Von Kaenel]

Bob,

This site has everything you need to make a V sander at reasonable prices. You just provide a motor. http://www.stockroomsupply.com/V_Drum_Sander.php

Joe

[Doug Hobkirk]

…I now purchase my drums already balanced and ready to go made out of steel. I buy them two at a time for $108 with shipping, 24" long drum with a 3/4" shaft through them that protrudes out one side by 3" and the other side by 4". These drums are 4" round…
…I built him a thickness sander...

Travis –
Way to pique my interest!

1. Where do you get your drums?
2. How do you build a thickness sander?

[Eddie Darby]

Couple of interesting points about the V-drum is, the earlier versions didn't perform as well as the later, due to the lack of a good set of balanced pulleys and the normal belt.
The new kits have link belt and balanced pulleys, so it costs more.

The kit also has low profile bearing holders, that come in handy if you are using the smaller diameter pipes, since the drum surface needs to clear the bearings for sanding surfaces wider than the drum. These too are a nice addition to the kit.

If you get sandpaper with the velcro backing, then I would suggest that you keep it in air tight bags to preserve it.

The system that you can buy has an anti-static nature that keeps the dust in the box underneath, rather than flinging it into the air. This is not the case with a lot of home made drums.

Hope your build goes well!

[Bob Hallowell]

Bob,

This site has everything you need to make a V sander at reasonable prices. You just provide a motor. http://www.stockroomsupply.com/V_Drum_Sander.php

Joe

I know I just thought being a woodworker and tinkerer(if that's a word) I could build something as nice for less than a 1/3rd of the price.

Bob

[Travis Gauger]

Travis –

Way to pique my interest!

1. Where do you get your drums?
2. How do you build a thickness sander?

Wow,
I have a lot of emails from this one. I'm going to try to post as much of it as i can on the forum and try to keep it accessable to all. I've got over 30 designs and have built about 8 of the different designs. In total I have built about 14 of these in the past year and maybe 20 or so over the course of the last 5 years or so. Here we go...

#1 - RSCI.com is where I have been getting the drums. $58.55 each with a minimum order of two. Most of my sanders at late have been dual drums because of this. If a few people were to pool together you could probably get a better deal than that even.

#2 - Not such an easy question to answer when I started to think about it. So lets start kind of simple and we can work from there with more specific questions as they arise. Lately I have been using extruded aluminum and aluminum angle for the frame works and laminated MDF for most of the table surfaces. Guards and covers have been fabbed out of Aluminum flashing or thin (22-24Ga) whatever I can find cheap and that serve the purpose. I did one recently where we made all the covers out of luan plywood that was about 3/16" thick or so. Actually turned out looking kind of neat.

A drum sander isn't really all that complicated, until you start to throw all the extras at it. The easiest way for most is to build it out of MDF as it is easily accessable. You need a table, a drum, and some way to adjust the relationship betweeen these two things. I will start to upload files as I can. Take a look and I hope it helps. I will check this thread often and try to answer everyones questions as I can. Otherwise just keep bugginh me and I will get to them as I can.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

I have had the intent to build a drum sander using concrete because (a) I don't have a welder & a serious metal cutting saw and (b) wood strikes me as too fickle a material to use because of it's sensitivity to humidity.

I like the idea of concrete because it's heavy (vibration dampening and quiet) and moisture proof (won't change with the weather) . I can also form it any way I want.
I know I can make a dead flat table sides and base from concrete. I can seal the concrete with an epoxy.

But: I am remodeling my kitchen and doing a black Granite which I may purchase a little extra of for some things in the shop. A Drum-Sander table may be among them. Set into a Concrete sub base the granite will make a nice slick flat surface against which to feed my work.

The Drums:
I've considered laminations of MDF. I don't like the idea though.

I looked for a source of pre-manufactured drums and came away unhappy.

I even considered making my own aluminum drums cast onto and around steel bar stock. then sending 'em out for machining. Alum' melts easily but it's a tad tricky casting Alum' in open air.

As an anecdotal item I have melted aluminum and accidentally found it later to have escaped me and puddled itself around a hard (and uncleaned) steel 5/8" allen bolt. The aluminum would not come off. It was on there for good.

I'm thinking I'd like to try using 2"dia steel bar (with keys) running through a densely compacted (hammer packed) concrete mixture of metal fiber, welded metal wire cloth, and micro-silicates mixed into a dry-ish concrete mix.

I'd true up the concrete drums pretty much the same way you'd true up an MDF drum. It'll be harder is all.


For Feed:
Hand feed was the first idea. I have failed to source a webbing belt that'd be what I want. An alternative is to feed it like a planer does. 3"-dia steel bars with some rubberizing on 'em. The rubberizing could be spiral wound strip cut Neoprene glued in place around the metal shafting with Weldwood and clamped at the ends.

All the pedestal bearings could be mounted directly on the concrete held in place with long bolts that run through the concrete sides to openings in the concrete just for bolt access. I'd though about going all the way through the height of the sides with all thread but I think I want Grade-8 bolts with less stretch than Allthread.

At some point I have to try to build the drums. Then spin 'em up to speed and see if they will blow up when abused a bit. It is after all only concrete. Not the best expansive stress resistance in the world

[Travis Gauger]

Wow Cliff. That's really all I can say on that one. Wow!

I have a neighbor that does concrete counter tops and stuff. I was talking with him about some real high PSI crete for a table idea I had. He has made a few desk tops out of 2" thick, 22" wide crete that cantilever out from the base. The free span area of the top is over 6' and you can sit out on the end of it. It is some strong stuff I agree. The table idea I had was going to be for an assembly table, 30"X60" top that was about 1.5" thick and supported with some shop made cabs. The top turned out great. Couldn't detect any out of flat spots with the tools we were using at the time. He acid stained it a really dark, almost black and the top looked like it was a big granite surface plate. Neat. Got it in the shop and it just wasn't practicle. It was just too much weight for what I needed at the time.

As far as using crete to build a drum sander, Wow! I can't wait to see the pictures of the finished unit.

[John Strait]

Travis,
Do you happen to have a part number for drum from RSCI.com?

Thanks for all the info.

[duke bryant]

has anybody tried adapting a lunchbox planer to do thickness sanding?

I am thinking that if you found one that had problems, or could be had for a decent price second hand it might be a good place to start since it already has a feed mechanism built in.

Of course whenever I have tried stuff like this in the past with other projects, I almost always end up spending more than if I had just bought a commercially available product.

Duke

[Steve Haley]

Travis,
It looks like Richmond builds conveyor parts. I never though to use a conveyor sheave. What diameter do you recommend. This sounds like a great project.