SANDING MACHINES
Sanding machines are primarily for removing planer chatter marks or creating a smooth surface on solid wood to prepare them for finishing. The coarseness of the grit will determine what is appropriate:
- 30 -60 grit are for very coarse sanding such as truing up an edge (vertical belt sanders).
- Disk sanders are very powerful and work very well where you need to take of a lot of material.
- Oscillating Sanders are good for getting into tight places or inside of rings.
Large Disk Sander #55 and #56 The Disk Sander use a course git and are powerful. They useful for removing excess wood quickly. They do have a small sanding area and are useful for cleaning up end cuts on a board.
There are several types of small sanders. This is a combination belt and disk sander. The grooved track in the middle of the bed can be used with a miter gauge to cut perpendicular or at an angle.
There are 2 Vertical Belt Sanders #54 with 44″ beds, which are perpendicular to the paper making it useful for squaring up edges of a board.
This is a newer version of our older vertical belt sander in that the bed oscillates while it sands. Thus, distributing the belt wear more evenly. The older machine mainly sands boards place flat on the bed giving the bottom of the belt the most wear and very little at the top.
The Oscillating Sanders # 57 & # 58 oscillate up and down. These are useful for finishing curved surface or tight areas. If you have a line you are cutting to with a band saw and it needs a little bit of material removed to smooth out the curve these machines work very well.
The Oscillating Sanders have a variety of sanding drums. There is a bolt on the top of the drum to remove or install different drums.
Drum Sanders
Click on Machine Phot for more Details.
Finishing wood is a set of steps. Drum Sanders do the first levels of finishing. You start by using course paper, 30 to 60 grit and progress upward to 120 or 180. For even smoother finish you use palm sanders and grits can go to about 600.
Drum Sanding machines are primarily for removing planer chatter marks, or creating a smooth surface on solid
wood to prepare them for finishing. You should think of using the club’s power sanders the way you would use a palm sander to put a fine smooth finish on a project before applying clear finish coats and not to remove waves or irregularities in the wood. However, these machines can do ten times the sanding in the same amount of time. If more than 1/32” of wood needs to come off, use the Parallel Planer. Before using a drum sander, you should have trued the surface with a Parrell Planer. Drum Sanders do the first levels (30 – 180 grit) of finishing.
All Drum Sanders have a sanding roller above a conveyer belt. The conveyer belt, with a board on it is started slightly below the drum with a crank. The belt is gradually raised to perform the sanding. All of the drum sanders have cranking instructions on them.
The Medium Drum Sander #48 has a 21″ bed and uses 40 grit paper. This machine is for removing coarser planer chatter marks, or creating a semi-smooth surface on
solid wood.
#14 Drum Sander has a 21″ bed. This machine uses 120 grit paper and should be used for finer sanding after machine #48.
The Small Drum Sander #74 has a 12″ bed. This machine is for smaller pieces of wood or creating a smooth surface on solid wood. If more than 1/32” of wood needs to come off, use the thickness planer.
The #13 Drum Sander has a 33″ bed.
The Sanding table is not a tool, but it is designed to hold a board while it is sanded with a palm sander. The palm sander is normally used to finish sand a piece of wood using finer grits of 100 and above to give a very smooth finish for clear finishes.