An Appreciation of Conical Disk Sanding

[BuckeyeDennis]

What kind of glue did you use, John? Any problem with it loading up your sandpaper?

I may switch to abrasives for glueups myself. I have some nicks in my planer blades that could only have come from glue joints.

[mediadaddy]

I have used the conical disk many, many times.
As an edge finishing tool, it's unbelievable.

On oak, ipe, walnut, cherry.

To combat the sandpaper price, I use a Shopsmith piece as a pattern- spray adhesive and 12" disks from HF.

I use it as well to precisely thickness and finish boards made from rough stock in preparation for glue up.

I'll add, the Shopsmith panel clamps are wonderful as well.

[reible]

I've had problems sanding excess glue. Tends to clog the paper.

Once upon a time I use to try to clean it off with a wet rag (water soluble glue only) then went to the wait about 20 minutes and scrap the still pile-able glue off as best I can. Less effect of the finish and the sand paper that way, and I think faster.

But if something else works for you then fine.

I just got my second conical disk and have yet to clean it and put the paper on. I like the idea of a disk allocated to a grit and I have done that will all of my other disks. I also don't at this time see the need for the 50 grit, just a bit to much for most of the things I do.

Ed

[Sazerac81]

What kind of glue did you use, John? Any problem with it loading up your sandpaper?

I may switch to abrasives for glueups myself. I have some nicks in my planer blades that could only have come from glue joints.

Hey Dennis,

I used the titebond Dark Wood Glue. I didn't want any of the lighter streaks from the normal glue potentially showing up in the walnut glue up joints.

Yeah, I am always a bit worried about the glue damaging my blades. I now have the shopsmith blade sharpener (finally, it took about a month to receive it after ordering it) so may be less worried.

It is such a pain though to pull out and place a new set of planer blades, just a time consuming task overall.

I didn't find that the glue was a huge problem with loading the paper, I did take a break to clean the paper with the abrasive sandpaper cleaner stick that I've grown quite fond of.

As mentioned, the main issue is just fatigue if you are really trying to take off a good amount of material. Trying to take off too much material is definitely asking for a kickback/throwback scenario.

Cheers,
John

P.S. Oh, I also forgot to mention that I was happily surprised that the dust extraction/collection was quite good with my rikon dust collector setup. It is supposed to move 650cfm, but highly doubt it after going through all of the piping and the thien baffle, however, it seems to move a good bit more air than the shopsmith dust collector.

[ERLover]

I bought one with the 3 grits when they first came out about a year + ago. I think I have the mid grade grit on it, I have not used it lately, or much, but when I do I love it.

[jsburger]

A card scraper works really well for removing glue and they are easy to sharpen.

I have always been skeptical of the idea that glue lines ding/dull planer/jointer blades. Is glue that hard. I don't think so, but I have been wrong many times.

Having said that, I do not run raw (squeeze out) glue lines on my jointer or planer.

One other thing is that one should run stock on the jointer or planer all over the blades. Change the fence on the jointer to use the entire cutter and run stock all over the planer table.

[ERLover]

A card scraper works really well for removing glue and they are easy to sharpen.

I have always been skeptical of the idea that glue lines ding/dull planer/jointer blades. Is glue that hard. I don't think so, but I have been wrong many times.

Having said that, I do not run raw (squeeze out) glue lines on my jointer or planer.

One other thing is that one should run stock on the jointer or planer all over the blades. Change the fence on the jointer to use the entire cutter and run stock all over the planer table.

John, I have had jointer blades with the same notch after running 20 laminated/glued table legs with cleaned up glue lines, newbie or mis judged myself. The glue was TiteBond, but I am sure anyone of them would have done the same.

[Hobbyman2]

glue joints looked tight , edges looked square ,nice job !!

[Sazerac81]

glue joints looked tight , edges looked square ,nice job !!

Thanks Hobbyman! I am happy with the way they turned out and the joints are nice and tight. You'd have to take a good look to see that one of the legs were multiple pieces glued together due to the nice color blending of one of the legs. The legs that are bound together with alternating colors look good, but clearly look like multiple pieces joined due to sharp color variation.

I'm pretty happy with the conical sanding disc so far. I can see it being very useful for those highly figured woods and the process gets everything nice and square if you set it all up properly.

Cheers,
John