Lathe sanding drum, hand held belt sander abrasives, a good choice?

[TomTrees]

Hello all, I need to thickness some UMHW cutting board strips soon,
and thinking I could put my lathe to good use here, if I rigged it up as a mini drum sander.
I have a hefty faceplate which came with the machine, and some suitable composite materials for making the drum.

Not looked into this much, but did see a Woodsmithplans.com article with the first hit, using the title...
"Lathe sanding drum" entered into google.
The idea of using hand held belt sander belts appears like a sensible proposition,
and seems the belts might be a common or universal size, though that's from the American description...
"This one uses 3"" x 24"" sanding belts you can find at any hardware store or home center. It’s a common size belt used on portable belt sanders"...
Though you have to pay to know how the abrasives are held onto the drum!

Mooching around on Screwfix, I see a whole selection of sizes to choose from, and seemingly the largest size in the range uses
610 x 100mm belts.
I guess it wouldn't hurt to have a little extra width, but not sure if this might prove to be a big PITA down the road,
should spares be hard got.
The width not all too important, but the diameter of the drum is rather my concern.

Wondering what ye have to say about this, I'm guessing there could be lots of suggestions,
from opting to change the design of the drum, to include a slot and wedge pin for use with standard width sandpaper rolls,
or to choose fancy velcro paper for the job instead.
Seems I'll be needing to go to town for some kind fixings for the drum anyway,
so it would be nice to get some ideas so I can make my mind up about what abrasives to go shopping for.

Thanks all
Tom

 

[Steve Maskery]

WHIW there is no such thing as a Standard size. There are lots of different machines with lots of different sizes.
S

 

[TomTrees]

Hi Steve, I was just figuring there would be such for handheld counterparts,
as it is with floor standing machines.
From what you suggest, it might seem a good idea to thrall through various companies what sells
hand held sanding machines, in order to see all/most of them, makes something which takes a 100mm belt,
and hope the length is the same, with all/most brands?

I'd rather not have to make another drum to suit, should they, i.e Makita, DeWalt etc...
stop making a certain sized unit.

I forgot to mention. another option might be to source whatever belt might be suggested,
and design the drum to crimp on those belts?

Cheers
Tom

 

[TomTrees]

Here's an example, this sander came up from the site "Powertools.ie",
when I typed in Makita belt sander, 100mm...

What say ye, about the likelyhood of this sized unit staying produced,
or is there another sized unit I should be thinking about, in order to suit a custom made drum?.


I see the site is selling Trend abrasives for it, so guessing this may be a popular sized unit?...
and perhaps not uber specific, like what some of the more niche companies might produce,
i.e. Festool, Lamello or whoever specializes in belt sanders?

Whilst I doubt I could get spares for such in my local "middle isle" supermarket, I'm hoping there
might be some local tool shop which would stock them.
Maybe a good idea to start looking for it's vintage relative, to see if this size belt has been common for donkey's years.

Hopefully, it may be possible to simply jam on the abrasive onto the drum,
with or without tape of some sort?.

Thanks
Tom

 

[AndyP]

Tom, I had thought about this a while back but got no futher.

I just googled “lathe sanding drum” and the first hit was this which may be of interest.

Lathe Drum Sander

Lathe Drum Sander: A stationary drum sander is a helpful tool for smoothing and producing wood of uniform thickness; it can flatten wood from thin strips to larger panels. When flattening brittle wood or end grain, a planer simply will not work. A drum sander is a les…

www.instructables.com

 

[Malc2098]

Two thoughts…

I've sourced belts, discs and rolls from the likes of Dr Abrasives and Abrasives World.

The first time I needed some strips sanding to thickness, I was helped by a member here who was reasonably local, and had a drum sander. Is that a possibility?

And a third….Drum sanders do come up on FB marketplace, Gumtree and Ebay. That's how I eventually bought mine.

And a fourth…I wouldn't be without mine now I've got it, and abrasive rolls are easy to source, and you only really need two grades.

 

[JamesHow]

Tom, I had thought about this a while back but got no futher.

I just googled “lathe sanding drum” and the first hit was this which may be of interest.

Lathe Drum Sander

Lathe Drum Sander: A stationary drum sander is a helpful tool for smoothing and producing wood of uniform thickness; it can flatten wood from thin strips to larger panels. When flattening brittle wood or end grain, a planer simply will not work. A drum sander is a les…

www.instructables.com

Best use of a lathe yet!

 

[TomTrees]

Thanks for the replies folks.
I perhaps should have specified not wanting to convert the lathe into a semi dedicated wide drum sander,
as I keep it crammed up against the wall, so it'll be slightly annoying to use this wee drum,
as it'll need to be fed from the back of the machine.

Space being tight in there, and as such for me, the ethos of minimal tooling has always been an important factor...
To quote Rob Cosman, "I've never coughed up a shaving" comment, comes to my mind here.

Thankfully, when I first got interested in woodworking, I heard the name mentioned in a youtube bandsaw video,
fair few years back now, (by our own Steve, above) and before that,
I hadn't seen much usage of hand planes, so did indeed have intentions of building a full sized unit.

I should've probably found a youtube video of what I was thinking of,
as "mini" might be seen as such.... from a sorta SCM Sandya perspective!

What I'm thinking, could nearly be described as a wheel, rather than a drum.

Still not got around to looking into things more, but thinking the wedge pin, *for want of a better description)
is likely more sound of an idea, i.e not reliant on glue or tape,
and perhaps wide enough for regular rolls.

Still seems like cloth backed sander belts could be a better bet,
so looks like I need to figure the throat depth of the lathe, minus a platen, and try mocking up to find what might be a close match
.
Cheers folks

All the best
Tom

 

[TomTrees]

Howdy folks, it's been so long that my computer cannot write in the reply box for this site, so having to use a tablet instead.
I cannot seem to arrange pictures correctly, so cannot write any descriptions of whatever.
Not sure if this works as well as it could, as I've not seen anyone install abrasives on a Carroll sanding drum, nor have I seen them working either.
You'll have to visit the Aussie woodworkingforums.com site to see these, titled as...

Source for Good Quality Pedestal Drill Mounting Sanding Drums​

One thing which was pleasing to find, things didn't go all catttywompus upon remounting the drum back into the faceplate.!
I guess there will some niggles to crop up yet, like the abrasive coming loose as it's not tightening as good as it likely could do,
perhaps some fettling of the escapement neseccairy
So it pulls the abrasive taut,
or other reasons to attain this which might involve padding...

Perhaps I will find out wear only in one area, who knows?
With under a minutes testing, I've not got that impression,
and seems close enough to get the job of thickening some UMHW done.
Glad to get that bit over with, as it's horrible working with the stuff.

All the best
Tom

 

[Cabinetman]

So is this like a sanding mc? Put your wood through to get it to a thickness? What stops it being snatched though?

 

[TomTrees]

So is this like a sanding mc? Put your wood through to get it to a thickness?

Sorta like a luthiers drum sander I suppose, just not intended for the job, as I'll not be making a hinged table for starters...

What stops it being snatched though?

Not having a castor system for the lathe is the smartarse answer,
*as you might notice... (perhaps not though, with me lousy photographing skills)
the wood being fed  strictly from behind the machine.

The soft plastic I will be thicknessing, is long enough to feed half way, and back out to thickness the other end,
without the need to get my hands very close to the drum..
If it were smaller pieces, then it would likely require some temporary fixing, but I don't envision having to do any of that kinda thing
very soon.

I'll try and take some more pictures when I get back at me work.
All the best
Tom